Loyce Womack Holcomb and Royce Womack Odom do most everything twin girls do – except to live to be almost 91-years-old. As a matter of fact, Royce, the second born, wasn’t supposed to be alive.
Georgia Royce and Jimmie Loyce Womack are the daughters of the late Doctor Roy and Ollie Knowles Womack of Smithville, Tennessee.
There is an old adage that says twin sisters are “Double the strength; Double the support; Through thick and thin, they’re always there for each other. Life’s journey is always sweeter with a twin sister by your side; They’re more than just siblings; They’re each other’s rock.” (Anonymous)
And with this saying, it should be noted that Loyce and Royce are now residents of the Webb House Assisted Living community in Smithville, Tennessee. More importantly, Royce is quickly failing in physical and in mental health. The following interview occurred on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 in their Phoenix section room around 11 a.m. and features comments and recollections from Loyce Holcomb. During this time, Royce remained asleep and lethargic.
Born at home in the Sink Creek community of DeKalb County on November 17, 1934, their entry into the world was, itself, different. Delivered by local physician, Dr. Allen, this multiple birth was unknown to the Womack and Knowles’ families. “When Royce was born,” said Loyce, “the doctor said, ‘She’s dead.’” Not giving-up, their across-the-street neighbor, Betty Hallum, also was there and she immediately began dipping the stillborn Royce in a small amount of warm water and then into a pan of cold water. It was then Royce began breathing and crying. It was an innately-learned behavior of common sense.
Loyce is the oldest of the girls. She was born at 1:50 p.m. while her sister was born at 2 p.m. Their mother, Ollie, did not have an inkling she was expecting twins. Loyce weighed 8 pounds and Royce weighed 7.5 pounds at birth. So – Ollie Womack was pregnant with 15.5 pounds of babies.
‘Every July 4th, we had to pick blackberries. We left early in the morning. We didn’t have picnics or shoot fireworks. Daddy had us picking blackberries," Loyce shared. I failed to ask her if they were “chigger-prone.” Roy would raise vegetables, and the girls would sell them to the historic and now dismantled Seven Springs Hotel, once located on the Seven Springs Road in Smithville, Tennessee.
"We grew up on a farm and we had horses and cows and different farm animals. 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," she fondly remembered.
"When growing nursery stock, we started tying buds behind our mother (Ollie) when we were about 10," Loyce said. "We helped her while she tied and then we learned to do it. We worked really hard - on the farm and in the nursery. Our parents paid us for picking strawberries.” Loyce and Royce used to take their gathered strawberries to Conger’s store in Smithville, and then “they would take them to Nashville."
As with most everything done together in their lives, the girls were graduated from Smithville High School. "We started at Blue Springs School and Lucille Ferrell was our teacher, and we both got a whipping in our first year," Loyce laughed. "We didn’t have many games to play and there wasn’t any sports equipment lying around, so we were playing the game Bear. 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."
We were named after our grandparents," Loyce shared. "Our paternal grandfather was George Munroe, and our maternal grandfather was Jim Knowles.” Jimmie Royce and Georgia Loyce were the couple’s only two children.
"Daddy was about 20 years older than our mother," Loyce shared. "Two children were enough – and they were afraid to have any more. 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." This sounds familiar to my family.
"Grandpa Womack, George Munroe, died about a year before we were born, so we just remember him in pictures. His wife, American Griffith Womack, had died several years before, so we never knew Daddy’s parents. Papa “Mr. Jim” Knowles died May 15, 1944. We were 10. He was a big farmer and had several farms and was a nurseryman. Mama Knowles lived until 1958.” With an inherited mental illness pre-requisite, she committed suicide by drowsing.
The sisters have lived with, and adjacent to, each other the majority of their lives.
On a personal notation, I can remember the “twins” always having fruit trees and a huge vegetable garden. Along with their mother, they canned every vegetable in existence, especially green beans. On a personal note, I vividly remember “Aunt Ollie” emptying her canning jars, which held last year’s produce, and refilling them with fresh garden vegetables. This occurred yearly.
"We moved to Smithville (from Sink Creek) during Christmas, 1946" Loyce continued, “That was a good move for us. Helen Hayes was our first teacher in Smithville and Lucas Winfree was our principal. I played basketball in seventh and eighth grade but not in high school. Royce did. She was so little, but she could really guard those girls.”
Royce liked Home Economics. Loyce liked English but deplored mathematics. In an earlier interview, Royce remembered, “Herman Chumley was our first- and second-year algebra teacher, and all we would do is talk about basketball. He would spit in my ear and fuss at me about something I did in a game."
In an earlier interview, 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. Only two horses pulled our buggy - Old Diner and Beauty.”
We never had a vehicle until 1950," Loyce remembered. "Our Daddy sold enough peach trees to buy a new Chevrolet truck. It was a little more than $1,500. We would get a load of boys and girls every afternoon and head to Webb’s Drug Store or to Long’s, which was the other drug store in town. 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!”
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 $2 a day, but we saved that money."
"When we were in high school, we didn’t date too much," Loyce said. "We had 41 in our graduating class in 1952. We had so many friends - Janie Tittsworth, Ann Eller, Audrey Parker, Katherine Hill, and many others."
Royce and I were supposed to go to college at MTSU in Murfreesboro, but “We loved our parents and our home so much, we didn’t want to leave," Loyce said. "We had everything ready. We had a room, our clothes were ready to go and everything, but we just couldn’t leave home."
Loyce married James Holcomb on December 17, 1954. "I married at home," she said. "Brother Archie King from First Baptist Church married us. James’ 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 on Snow’s Hill. He had two sisters, Eloise Holcomb Gothard, who married Carl Gothard, and Imogene Holcomb, who married an Air Force man and moved to California. We have one daughter, Jamya Royce Holcomb, who was born in Jackson, Tennessee on August 19, 1960. She worked in marketing and has traveled to Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, etc. She never had any children. James had a stroke in 2000, and passed in 2007." Loyce’s grand dog is River Holcomb.
Royce married Earl Aaron Odom on September 27 1968.
"I was 33 when I married and we were married for 25 years when he died of cancer in 1993 in Bethesda, Maryland at the National Cancer Institute,” Royce remembered in an earlier interview. “I worked at Judkins’ Nursery for a couple of years. Then I went to work for the city, working at Greenbrook Park for more than 20 years.” Royce worked as an assistant supervisor at Genesco in Smithville for approximately nine years, beginning in 1965, followed by Knowles Nursery for several years.
"The last job I had was with the USDA Farm Service Agency," Loyce said. "I worked in McMinnville. I met so many great people on that job.” Later, "I worked at Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. I was working at Genesco when it closed in 1978. My husband, James, was building a road at a Jack Daniels warehouse in Lynchburg, Tennessee. I decided to get a job at Jack Daniels, so I could be with James. I worked there for 5 to 6 years. I met lots of friends there, too, and I was employed there from the latter part of 1979 until early 1985."
Both women are active members of Whorton Springs Baptist Church. "We went to the First Baptist Church until James got sick. Whorton Springs had a wheelchair ramp, so we started going there."
Both women list “cooking” as their favorite thing to do, although it has somewhat regressed since the aging process has invaded their lives.
At the Webb House, nurse Justice Dawson, also a twin sister, said of the “Womack” twins, “We’re glad they’re here. They bring so much life to our house.” Technician, Cindy Hale, laughed, “You can definitely tell they are sisters because of all their bickering. We call them the ‘Double Mint Twins.”’
In conclusion, Loyce added, “Always do the best you can, and let God be in your life and be in control. Do well in whatever you do.” While these words came from Loyce, she, as always, was speaking for Royce as they smiled together.
But, isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be? Sisters are the perfect best friends. And, they’ve done enough in their long lifetime – separately-but mostly, together.
Yes – they came into this world together; they have grown together; and, they will leave this world together.
