A Quadruplet with Character: Roberta Keys-Torn

When Roberta Keys-Torn and her sisters were born in 1915, it was a surprise. Her parents, after all, were expecting one child -- not four girls who together weighed 16 pounds. The quadruplets were soon a sensation.


It's Friday morning, which is when we hear from StoryCorps. This oral history project is collecting stories of Americans across the country.

And today we'll learn a little of the story of Roberta, Mona, Mary and Leota Keys. They are sisters, quadruplets, all born in 1915. They were among the first quadruplets ever to survive to adulthood. And now Roberta has outlived all of her sisters. She recently talked with her daughter about the night 91 years ago when she and her sisters were born.

'It was in the middle of the night, and I guess word got out in a hurry because everybody in the town was excited. And there were some women, they opened up the drugstore, and got us some little clothes to put on because my mother was only prepared for one. And we only had one birth certificate for four babies. So well it has our names all on one line. And then it says "All Girls". From the time we were very young, I think, 9 months old, we were on display at the Oklahoma State Fair, every year until we were in the third grade. They built a kind of a little, a house for us with tall walls and then people spent 25 cents to come in and look over the wall. We just were on our regular little routine, we played with dolls and they handed out little postcards with our pictures and later on when we were growing up, some people would say 'Ooh, we paid 25 cents to see you when you were little at the fair'. And we just said 'Do you want your money back?'

"Did they?"

" No."

They were afraid to say.

Oh, I know too that you had chances to go into show business once college was over. What happened?

Well, everybody else was making money, so we had to think of a way. So we devised a little act where we sang, and played our saxophones, and told little, little stories of our lives.

What broke up that act?

Well, Mona announced that she was going to get married. Everybody thought it was wonderful. It had to be. But I was sad. I like being a quadruplet than wanting anything else.

That's Roberta Keys-Torn, with her daughter Susan Young at the StoryCorps booth in Houston, Texas.

All of these interviews are archived at the Library of Congress. And today by the way, we're starting the StoryCorps Podcast, to which you can subscribe at NPR.org.