Seeing triple: USU sisters always put each other first
More than a decade ago, their mother dressed the three of them in identical Mickey Mouse sweaters with their long, blonde hair pulled back by clips on top of their heads. In elementary school it was more difficult to tell them apart, Taylor Anderson said, but now that they are in college they have become individuals with their own quirks and styles.
While their styles may be different, they constantly finish each other’s sentences.
“We’d be in a grocery store when we were five,” Taylor said, “and we wouldn’t really understand things about being a triplet. People would come up to us in the store and say, ‘Are you triplets?’ and we’d say, ‘No, we’re just sisters.'”
Taylor, Tonya and Teniele Anderson are USU sophomores who graduated from Logan High School in 2010. Each of them could have made the decision to leave Cache Valley to join three different junior college soccer teams, but turned down the offers to stay close to family and each other, Tonya said.
After sharing rooms, clothes, friends and hobbies while growing up, they still can’t get enough of each other, and live together near campus. Tonya is majoring in radiology; Teniele and Taylor are working on degrees in nursing.
Feb. 8, 1992 the Aggie triplets were the first set born in Logan Regional Hospital, and have a newspaper clipping to prove it. They were born premature, Tonya said. Taylor weighed 3 pounds when she was born while Tonya and Teniele each weighed 4 pounds. Tonya said it’s a miracle all of them have maintained good health since leaving the hospital 20 years ago. With three older siblings, Taylor said her mother’s pregnancy with triplets was a definite surprise.
“We had a lot of help with our aunts and grandmas,” Taylor said, “they would always come over and feed us and make sure we were taken care of.”
“We had three different cribs, but we would all climb in one crib and sleep together every night,” Teniele said. “And then we would all have our bottles every night and if we didn’t finish them we’d pass them down to Taylor. She was like the disposal.”
Taylor said the family loves to watch a home video of the three girls eating Fruit Loops, because every time Tonya or Teniele would look away, Taylor would eat theirs. The girls have been inseparable since they can remember, Taylor said, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t put up fights during disagreements.
“We would get in little fist fights,” Teniele said, “like kicking each other or punching each other. We had our little motto: Taylor punched, Tonya kicked, and I pinched.”
The sisters helped each other survive high school, Tonya said, and if one of them was having a bad day they would hold it inside until they saw one of the triplets. It was OK to cry when they found each other, she said.
“We know exactly how the other two are feeling,” Teniele said. “That’s what happens since we know each other so well.”
Teniele wouldn’t trade being a triplet for anything, she said, because her sisters are part of who she is, but still, being a triplet does have its disadvantages. A lot of people are afraid to get to know them when they find out they’re triplets, because they are afraid to mistake one for the other.
“On campus, if someone thinks I’m Tonya they’ll talk to me if they are in her class,” Taylor said, “and I just have to act like her because I feel stupid telling them I’m not. If I feel way bad if halfway through the conversation I say, ‘Actually, I’m Taylor,’ so I just go along with it.”
These awkward situations happen frequently, Tonya said, but when they do they’ll text the sister they were mistaken for and tell them about the conversation they had with the stranger who approached them, describing what that person looked like.
Everyone asks whether or not they swap dates, Teniele said, but they never have. However, Teniele did prod Tonya to cuddle with her boyfriend to see if he would notice it wasn’t her, but Tonya refused.
“Teniele’s boyfriend came over our apartment one time and hugged me and kissed me on the cheek,” Taylor said. “I think he thought I was Teniele, so I just yelled to her ‘Hey, Ben is here now.’ So, hopefully he knew who I was after that.”
When one of them first starts dating a boy they make sure to use each other’s names often, Taylor said. Overall, the sisters aren’t needy toward boys, because they confide in each other, Teniele said.
Each sister holds a local job, one at Lee’s Marketplace, one at Juniper Take Out and one at Village Inn.
“Sometimes people will come into Lee’s and ask, ‘How many jobs do you have?'” Teniele said.
One reason they know each other so well is because they each have similar personalities, Tonya said. Though they have a lot of things in common, each has maintained their individuality. Taylor is the shy one, Tonya is the independent one, and Teniele is a little more outgoing. Their mother is one of the biggest reasons why they’ve been able to grow up feeling like individuals — never forced to be a certain way, Taylor said.
“Most twins or triplets would just share one cake on their birthday, but our mom asked us what our favorite cake was and make us three cakes,” Taylor said. “We’d sing three separate times.”
In high school Tonya decided to play basketball when Tonya and Teniele joined the ski team, and she figured her mom wouldn’t come to her games because the three of them were no longer playing together, she said. When her mom still came to every one of her games, she was touched, because she truly felt her mom supported and loved her individually.
Taylor, Teniele and Tonya plan on living near each other in coming years. They want their kids to grow up together, Tonya said. For now, though, they are content experiencing every new day and challenge together.
“They will give me true advice,” Taylor said. “Friends will give you advice in the moment, but sisters will give you a real answer because they know how much getting that advice means to you.”
“We honestly love being together,” Tonya said. “We’ll come home to our apartment after being out and just stay there to be together.”
– catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu