Twins in the family - Maude and Maurice Wise

This picture shows my Great-Grandmother Maude Wise Brubaker Yontz and her twin brother Maurice James Wise.

They were born on December 9, 1877 in Whitley County, Indiana. There is no date written on the back so I don't know when the picture was taken but based on several other photographs of Maude, it was probably in the mid-late 1920s. Maurice died on July 25, 1943 in an automobile accident in Elkhart, Indiana. He was 65 years old.

This is a very nice picture but it has an amusing aspect as well, at least to me. Looking at this picture, you wouldn't know that Maude stood just a little over 5 feet tall, perhaps 5'3" at the most, while Maurice was 6'2" tall (according to my mother). You can distinctly see the height difference in the Wise family photograph included in the biography of their parents, William P. Wise and Sophia Dunfee. (Scroll about halfway down the page.)

At the time of his death, Maurice was living at 103 North Nottawa Street in Sturgis, Michigan and was the owner of the Wise Restaurant in Sturgis. His obituary said he was active in civic affairs at Sturgis and had been living there for six years. Again, according to my mother, Maurice had never been married and didn't have any children. I really don't know any more about him, I'll have to ask my mother and her sisters again, but in the past all they have said is that he owned a restaurant and was much taller than his twin sister.