There are many curious tales surrounding identical twins, but the story of Jim Lewis and Jim Springer is simply astonishing.
Known now as the ‘Jim Twins’, the two brothers were separated at birth and didn’t meet until 1979 – 39 years after being separated. They had been raised by different families, grown up in different towns, and lived nearly 40 years completely unaware of each other’s existence.
And yet when they met, Lewis described the experience as “like looking into a mirror.” They had the same name, and of course looked the same. But the similarities between the two went far beyond that.
Both had been nail-biters as children, and both experienced migraines. Both had childhood dogs, which they each named ‘Toy’. Both married wives called Linda, then divorced and remarried wives named Betty. Springer had a first son he named James Alan; Lewis called his son James Allen.
They’d taken holidays on the same Florida beach, both drank Miller Lite beer, both smoked the same Salem cigarettes, both liked stock car racing. They both disliked basketball, left regular love notes for their wives, made doll furniture in their basements, and had added circular white benches around the trees in their backyards. They never lived together, but both died on the same day – and from the same illness.
