Twins Georgia Royce (Odom) and Jimmie Loyce (Holcomb) Womack agree on one thing. Royce is the boss.

"Somebody has to be the boss. I’d say it should be the smarter one," Royce told the Review. "I always say the smarter one keeps her mouth shut," Loyce retorted. Apparently the disagreements never end, even after 82 years.

"When Royce and I were born, mother didn’t know she was going to have twins," Lois informed. "We were born at home, and a lady who lived across the creek, Miss Betty Hallum, was there. The doctor delivered me at ten minutes til two on a Saturday afternoon. About ten minutes after I was born the doctor said there was another baby. Of course, that was a shock to mother, and everyone else. I was an eight-pound baby, and then here came another seven-and-a-half-pound baby, but she was not breathing. Miss Betty took Royce and put her in a pan of warm water, then finally she breathed."

We were named after our grandparents," Royce shared. "Our father’s father was George Munroe, and our other grandfather was Jim Knowles. We went by Georgie and Jimmie until we moved from Sink Creek around Christmas 1946. When we moved to Smithville we changed it to Royce and Loyce."

They said that their father was a good man with a strange name.

"We had a good father," Loyce said. "His name was Doctor. He wasn’t a doctor. His Name was Doctor Roy Womack. He had an Uncle called Doc, and I guess they named daddy for him."

"He was a farmer," Royce added. "He was a good man," Loyce said. "A really good man," said Royce.

"We had a good mother, too. Her name was Ollie Knowles Womack. We had good parents. They taught us right from wrong. Maybe we didn’t always listen, but they always tried," said Loyce.

Royce and Loyce were the couple’s only two children.

"Daddy was about 20 years older than our mother," Loyce shared. "Two was enough. They were afraid to have any more," Royce added. "Daddy was 40 when they were married. They didn’t have us until six years later. He was old enough to be a grandpa by the time he had kids."

"Grandpa Womack, George Munroe, died about a year before we were born, so we just have pictures of him," Royce said. "His wife, American Griffith Womack, had died several years before that, so we never knew daddy’s parents. Papa Knowles died May 15 1944. We were ten years old. He was a big farmer. He had several farms, and he was a nurseryman. Mama Knowles lived until 1958. She drowned."

The two said there were a few discipline problems early in their school career.

"We started at Blue Springs School, Miss Lucille Ferrell was our teacher, and we both got a whipping in our first year," Loyce said. "We didn’t have many games to play, there wasn’t any sports equipment lying around, so we were playing Bear, which is kind of like King of the Hill. The problem was, our base was on top of Miss Lucille’s car. She looked out the window and there we were on top of her car using it for a base. She didn’t appreciate it much."

The pair said that childhood was a wonderful time.

"When we were growing up we lived on Sink Creek. We had fun growing up. All the neighbors had children, and we always had friends to play with. We always had a playhouse, even when we moved to Vaughn Lane, we had a playhouse in the barn loft," Loyce said.

"We grew up on a farm, we had horses and cows and everything you have on a farm. Our Daddy grew nursery stock, mostly peach trees. We would pick strawberries, and help with the peach trees. When we were old enough, he put each of us on a horse or a mule, and when we would get to the end of the rows he would turn our horse around and start us back the other way. Sometimes we’d have a fight right out in the strawberry patch," she continued.

"We started tying buds behind our mother when we were about ten years old," Loyce said. "We helped her," Royce corrected. "We helped her while she tied, and learned to do it," Loyce amended

Every Fourth of July we had to go pick blackberries. We left early in the morning. We didn’t go picnicking, and shoot off fireworks. Daddy had us picking blackberries," Royce shared.

Daddy would raise vegetables, and we would sell them to Seven Springs Hotel, which is long gone," Loyce added. "There was an African-American lady who was a cook there, and she gave us a chicken and biscuit once. We thought that was the grandest thing ever."

"We worked really hard," Royce said. "On the farm, and in the nursery." Loyce: Of course our parents paid us for picking strawberries," Loyce put in. "We used to take them to Conger’s store, and they would take them to Nashville."

"You always made more money than I did," Loyce complained. "I could pick twice as many strawberries as you," Royce claimed. "It may be because I ate so many," Loyce admitted.

Loyce said that Royce was the basketball player.

"We moved to Smithville in 1946, at Christmas," she said. "That was a good move for us. We made so many friends in town. Miss Helen Hayes was our first teacher in Smithville, and Mr. Lucas Winfree was our principal. I played in seventh and eighth grade, I didn’t come out for basketball in high school, but Royce did. She was so little, but she could really guard those girls. They were all bigger than she was, but she could stay with them."

"I liked Home Economics," Royce shared. But you don’t like to cook," Loyce replied. "I don’t have to cook now, I’ve got you to do it for me," Royce admitted. "I liked English. I didn’t like math" Loyce said. Royce: "Mr. Herman Chumley was our first and second year algebra teacher, and all we would do is talk about basketball," Royce informed. "He would spit in my ear and fuss at me over something I did in a game."

"Daddy had three sisters who were old maids, and we visited them a lot, and we would go to our grandparents," said Loyce. "Every weekend," Royce added. "We had two horses that pulled our buggy, and when we got to the turn on Vaughn Lane coming home, the horses knew where to go," Loyce claimed. Only one horse pulled our buggy," Royce disagreed. "Two horses. Old Diner and Beauty," Loyce insisted. "But not at the same time," said Royce. "No, they took turns," Loyce admitted. "They would just turn in themselves," Royce agreed.

"We never had a vehicle until 1950," Loyce remembered. "Our dad sold enough peach trees to buy a new Chevrolet truck. It was a little more than $1,500. It was a brand new truck. We got to drive it to school.

"Of course, we would get a load of boys and girls every afternoon and head to Webb’s Drug Store. Royce: Or we would go to Long’s. Loyce: Long’s was the other drug store. One cold day we had a load of boys in the back of the truck, and we drove them to Sligo. We nearly froze those boys to death. Royce: They jumped out. Loyce: When we stopped they jumped out and thumbed back to town. We had a lot of fun."

"When we were in high school we didn’t date too much," Loyce said. "We had too much else going on," Royce interjected. "We had basketball, and…" "…we had lots of friends," Loyce finished. "We had 41 in our graduating class in 1952." "We had so many friends, Royce remembered. "Janie Tittsworth, Ann Eller, Audrey Parker, Katherine Hill, so many friends."

"We were a close-knit class," said Loyce. "Sixty-five years have passed since graduation." We never thought about…" Royce began. "…living to be 82 years old" Loyce finished. "Several of us are still around, though."

"We were supposed to go to MTSU, but we loved our parents and our home so much we didn’t want to leave," Loyce said. "We didn’t go to college because we didn’t want to leave home" Royce agreed. "We had everything ready. We had a room, our clothes were ready to go and everything, but we just couldn’t leave."

"Daddy gave us the pickup, and we traded it for a blue 1952 Chevrolet Bel Air car," Loyce said. "We had enough money saved to pay the difference. We paid cash from the money we’d made picking strawberries. I think we got two dollars a day, but we saved that money." "When Loyce got married she gave me her part of the car," Royce added.

Loyce married James Holcomb on December 17, 1954.

"I married at home," she said. "Brother Archie King from First Baptist Church married us. His parents, W.S. and Geneva Holcomb moved here right after high school. His father worked with the construction company that was building the new road up Snow Hill. He had two sisters, Eloise Holcomb Gothard, who married Carl Gothard, and Imogene, who married an Air Force man and moved to California. She lives in Las Vegas now.

"We have one daughter, Jamya Royce Holcomb. She worked in marketing, and has traveled to Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, and all sorts of places with her work. She never had any children. James had a stroke in 2000, and passed in 2007."

Royce married Earl Aaron Odom on September 27 1968.

"I was 33 when I married. We were married for 25 years when he passed in 1993, from cancer. He died in Bethesda, Maryland at the National Cancer Institute. We were there 14 days when he passed."

"John Atnip asked me one day, ‘would you date Earl Odom?" Royce recalled. "I said ‘Well, I guess.’ So he’s the one who got me a date with Earl. We dated six weeks and got married. We never had children. We were farmers and nurserymen. We had a nursery on Sink Creek when he died, and I kept it until a hail storm came through in 1995 and wiped everything I had out. I went to Judkins Nursery, and worked there a couple of years. Then I went to work for the city. I’ve worked at Greenbrook Park for twenty years this year.

"We had a good marriage," she continued. "Earl and I got along so well. I loved the nursery. I worked every day with him out in the field. I was helping him disc one day and I was kind of close to a bank, and I put my foot on the wrong pedal and went right over in a gully. He started fussing at me, and I started crying. I said ‘I’ll just call Kent Robinson and have him pull me out.’ and he started laughing. We had some great times."

Work didn’t end with marriage, however.

"The last job I had, I worked For the USDA Farm Service Agency," Loyce said. "I worked in McMinnville. I met so many great people on that job. The job before that…" "Before that she made whiskey," Royce laughed. "I worked at Jack Daniels," Loyce continued. "I was working at Genesco when it closed in 1978. My husband built roads. He was building a road at Jack Daniels in Lynchburg, at one of their warehouses. I decided I wanted to get a job at Jack Daniels so I could be with James. I worked there for 5-6 years. I met lots of friends there, too. I loved to work there. I didn’t particularly like the idea of making whiskey, I’d rather have been bottling cold drinks. I worked there from the latter part of 79 until early 85."

"You do what you have to do," Royce said. "I worked at Genesco too. I was an assistant supervisor. I went to work there in 1965. I worked there 8-10 years. Then I worked at Knowles Nursery for several years." "Your first job was at the shirt factory sewing top buttons," Loyce said. "Then I got married and went back to farming and nursery work," Royce continued.

"I’ve lived in DeKalb County all my life," Royce said. "I’ve lived in Scottsville Kentucky, where my husband was building a road, and lived in Lynchburg. I’ve been to Florida a few times," Loyce shared. "We used to go on vacation every year to Florida," Royce confirmed. "We live side by side now on south college Street. I have some cattle, and Royce helps me with them. Royce goes to the farm with me every morning to feed calves," Loyce said.

Loyce went grey early, leading to some confusion.

Royce: We were in Nashville a few years ago, and this lady asked us if we were mother and daughter, or are you sisters. I didn’t have any grey hair at the time, and Loyce went grey years ago. The woman didn’t want to believe we were twins. Loyce: I feel like I’ve been grey all my life. I don’t even remember what color my hair was. Royce: I only started getting gray about three years ago."

"We’re both members of Whorton Springs Baptist Church" Loyce shared. "We love our church family, and our pastor, Brother Mike Carpenter. We went to First Baptist until James got sick. Whorton Springs had a wheelchair ramp, so we started going there."

"Royce and I have had such good lives," Loyce said. "The Lord has blessed us…" "…in so many ways," Royce finished.

I’m proud of my daughter," Loyce said. "I’m proud of her too," Royce added. "She has two mothers," Loyce continued. "Two bosses," Royce said. "I’m proud Jayma is like she is," Loyce continued. "She can take up for herself. I was always too easy going."

Neither twin would change much about their lives if they could.

I wouldn’t change too much. I’ve had a good life, I had a good marriage, and a wonderful husband. Earl and I were so happy," Royce said. "I would still want my twin sister. She helps me manage," Loyce exclaimed. "Somebody has to be the boss. I’d say it should be the smarter one," Royce put in. "I always say the smarter one keeps her mouth shut," Loyce replied.

"I’m just glad I had a twin sister that would let me boss her around," Royce said. "God knew what he was doing when he made two of us, the twins proclaimed in unison.

The two women agreed that love is the answer to all problems.

"Always do the best you can, and let God be in your life. Let him be in control. If you see something, you’ve seen it before you think not to look. Do well in whatever you do," Loyce said. "I’m right with her. Do the right thing and do it well," Royce agreed.

"Love everybody," the two women said in unison. "If they don’t love you…"Loyce began, "…love them that much," more Royce finished.