Rogers Brown is a rare father -- Dad to two sets of twins

{Editor’s note: The following is one of a series of articles on twins running in the Marksville Weekly News.}

Is there room for one more twin story? The first three stories generated a phone call that led to this twin story.

Rogers Brown of Marksville gets my Father’s Day nod for 2018 because he’s the father of six children, which includes two sets of twin girls.

What makes that fact even more remarkable and rare is the two sets of twins were born on the same day, July 1 -- one set in 1988 and the other in 1989.

The odds of having two sets of twins is 1 in 16,000, according to the website whattoexpect.com.

“We were living in Morgan City at the time,” he said, “and I was working in the oil field. My wife was surprised and so was I that we were having twins.”

Twins run in Rogers’s family, so the fruit wasn’t falling too far from the tree.

In the 1988 set, Brandi is the older sister and Candi came along “about two minutes later.”

Unfortunately, Brandi didn’t get to go home with Candi. “Brandi didn’t weigh enough,” Rogers explained, “ and had to stay in the hospital a couple weeks longer.”

Candi, alone at home without her twin, felt the separation even as a newborn. “She didn’t rest well, she cried and cried. She knew her twin wasn’t near. When Brandi came home everything was fine,” Rogers remarked. “I bought two cribs and put a baby in each one but they wouldn’t sleep and cried.”

As an experiment, Rogers decided to put them in the same crib and the babies were happy. “I put a twin at one end and the other baby at the other end of the crib, then maybe an hour or so later I came in to check on them, one of them had scooted up to be with the other.”

Candi and Brandi wanted to be together then and still to this day they are inseparable, Rogers said.

When he went to the grocery store, Rogers said he’d have a buggy for the babies and one for the groceries.

Once as a “grown kid, Brandi was hospitalized with bronchitis,” Rogers said. “Candi didn’t sleep well until Brandi was back.” They went to LSUA and graduated together, they are Headstart teachers, they share an apartment, have traveled together and are currently making preparations to move to California.

Fayla and Kayla came along exactly one year later. “Again, we were both surprised,” Rogers laughed. “This time I wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse.”

With three small children in the house, Rogers’s wife decided they needed help, so Fayla and Kayla went to the in-laws.

“To be honest, I needed the help,” Rogers said, “and we saw the babies all the time.”

Then he added, “The doctor told us, according to the pattern of our children’s births, there was a good chance the fifth pregnancy would be twins again.”

It wasn’t.

Rogers and his late wife Taneshia Williams Rogers started their family with a son. The two sets of daughters followed and the couple finished with another child.

“I had six children in four years,” Rogers said, with an exclamation point.

Eventually Kayla and Fayla came back to live with Rogers.

Because of unforeseen circumstances and the untimely death of his wife, Rogers became mother, father, cook, personal shopper and hair stylist as his children grew up. “I could buy the twins clothes without them being with me,” Rogers said. “I styled their hair, even gave them perms. For a long time they dressed alike and wore their hair the same. It was in their preteen years they decided to dress UN- alike,” he emphasized.

Today, Kayla lives just down the street from her dad and is studying cosmetology at Blue Cliff College in Alexandria. Fayla is a counselor and currently attends LSUA studying criminal justice.

“My children love me dearly,” he said with pride, “and I love them. They are a blessing from above. I did what a father is supposed to do -- I provided for them and I took care of them.”

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