Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62.
The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed.
“When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Photo: Reading Eagle via AP
The twins, born Sept. 18, 1961, in West Reading, Pennsylvania, had distinct brains but were joined at the skull.
George, who had spina bifida and was 10cm shorter, was wheeled around by Lori on an adaptive wheeled stool. George came out as transgender in 2007.
Despite each having to go where the other went, it was “very important” to both “to live as independently as possible,” the obituary said.
Both graduated from a public high school and took college classes. George went along for six years as Lori worked in a hospital laundry.
Lori — “a trophy-winning bowler” — gave up the job in 1996 so that her sibling could launch a country music career, the obituary notice said.
“Since the age of 24, they have maintained their own residence and have traveled extensively,” the it said.
Over the years, they appeared in many documentaries and talk shows, as well as in an episode of the FX medical drama Nip/Tuck.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Lori was once engaged to be married, but that her fiance died in an automobile accident.
“When I went on dates,” Lori said, “George would bring along books to read.”
George spoke of giving someone you love and respect “the privacy and compromise in situations that you would want them to give you.”
Conjoined twins occur once in every 50,000 to 60,000 births when identical twins from a single embryo fail to separate. About 70 percent are female, and most are stillborn. Only a small percentage are joined at the head, with nearly three-quarters joined at the chest and others at the abdomen or pelvis.
Separation was deemed risky for the Schappell twins, but Lori Schappell said in a 2002 interview that she did not think such an operation was necessary in any case.
In the 1997 documentary, George also strongly ruled out the idea of separation, saying: “Why fix what is not broken?”
The oldest ever documented conjoined twins were Ronnie and Donnie Galyon, who died in 2020 at the age of 68.
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