Twin City
Even in the off-season, Cassville has more than its share of twins around. No one, not even Cassville Historical Society president Chuck Lange or Twin-o-Rama board chairman LaVern Kirschbaum, offers any plausible explanation for the high incidence of twins in this sleepy little river town with a population of only 1,144 or 1,270 depending on which border sign you believe. Jane Bernhardt, a writer with the Grant County Herald Independent blames it on “that Mississippi River,” but that can’t be taken as more than a joke. According to Berhardt, there were 38 sets of twins who called the area home in 1994, though the number has dropped from past generations.
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Henry Kuenster died in 1937 and Charlie two years later, but their groundwork was continued by the Cassville Civic Club, which in 1944 expanded the Twin Picnic to a two-day event. In 1946 the shebang went on hiatus because of World War II restrictions like gas rationing and, presumably, postwar efforts to produce new batches of twins. In 1961, the event was reinstated with vigor, a joint, nonprofit product of the Civic Club and other local organizations, including the women’s club, volunteer fire department and rescue squad, Council of Catholic Women, Saint Charles Service Committee, and the local VFW post, all of which decided to add a day to the event and rename it “Twin-o-Rama.” While the number of twins and occasional triplets who register for Twin-o-Rama hovers around 500 individuals each year, proud natives will boast that the event has drawn anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 people to the festival’s most popular attractions.
Of course, the Saturday evening KAT Cruise–a slow-moving procession of some 250 classic autos (a nice slection of Stingrays, Bel Airs, Edsels, Caddies and mid 60s muscle cars like Mustangs and Chargers) chugging 30 miles northeast from Dubuque still had 1,700 people lining Cassville’s main thoroughfare, Amelia Street. And the festival-capping Sunday-night fireworks launched from the Iowa bank of the Mississippi bring to the park a big crowd of friendly folks bidding a sentimental adieu to Twin-o-Rama for another year. And naturally, the bingo tent rakes it in.
Sunday’s events kicked off with a greeting by Cassville village president William Whyte and comments by Kirschbaum and some of the surviving members of the Kuenster family. Then judges like the Grant County Dairy King Matt Rupp and Twins Without Partners founder Alwin Richmond–a 72-year-old Aurora resident whose twin, Arthur, died in 1987–called the charges, set by set, before them for review.
“We live together,” they said in unison. “We got married to twin brothers and we had a double wedding, a double honeymoon. We worked together when we were working. The license on our car says ‘Twins 1.’”
After the 78 trophies were awarded to the top twins and the runners-up, it was back out into the fresh country air for the Twin Parade, again drawing streams of people lining Amelia Street. By the time the twins found their floats and the parade began, a crowd had assembled at the Pitcher’s Pub, located at the corner of Amelia and the optimistically named Wall Street. Its facade caked with mayflies dead and dying, Pitcher’s Pub is Cassville’s official sports bar, owned by a balding, low-key, semi-fast softball pitcher named Jim Hochhausen, who keeps tabs on local softball leagues, offers free billiards, and airs such televised fare as Packers games and speedboat and stock car races. He doesn’t seem to mind when people take their Schlitz outside to watch the parade.
