Siamese Twins Die At 43 -- Women, Joined At Head, Were Attending College

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Yvonne and Yvette McCarther, Siamese twins joined at the head, have died at age 43.

As children, they spent two years as a circus attraction to help pay hospital bills. In the 1970s, they sang with gospel music groups. They had been studying nursing when they were found dead last Saturday in their home, apparently of natural causes.

The sisters were among the world's oldest unseparated Siamese twins. They were craniopagus twins, one of the rarest types. They had separate personalities, brains and other organs, but shared a circulatory system.

When the two were born, doctors told their mother, Willie McCarther, that they should be institutionalized because they would probably be retarded, able to do little more than crawl.

McCarther ruled that out. Fearing that surgery would be fatal to one or both, she also refused to allow an operation to separate them. Instead, she taught them to think of themselves as individuals.

"They were wonderful to be around. They had an excellent sense of humor and spoke their mind freely," said Pamela Wilde, a spokesman for Compton Community College. "We'll sure miss them around campus."

In 1987, bored with a life of sleep and television soap operas, the twins began classes at the college after finding the school's catalog in the mailbox.

Their lives changed. The next year, Yvonne and Yvette moved out of their mother's home into a one-bedroom apartment in Long Beach.

The twins were survived by four sisters and their mother.