“Animals don’t hate, and we’re supposed to be better than them.” – Elvis Presley, the Twin Who Lived

Elvis was born on this day in 1935, Tupelo, Mississippi

From Elvis and Gladys by Elaine Dundy

On the chill afternoon of Tuesday, January 8, 1935, Catherine Hall was walking briskly home. At the end of Lake Street she slowed down looking right and left before crossing Highway 78 like her mama was always cautioning her to, but resumed her stride past Kelly Street and up to the corner of Berry when she brought herself to an abrupt halt. There on the Old Saltillo Road where she lived, right across from the Methodist church, she saw a crowd of neighbors collected around both Presley houses. Something interesting must be going on. Mama would know. She hurried past the people to her own front porch. But Mama was already waiting for her, and even before the thirteen-year-old girl could get out her question she was told to quickly change into her clean dress and tidy herself up because one of the twins young Mrs. Vernon Presley next door had given birth to that morning had passed away and they were going to pay their respects.

When her mother told her she was actually going to see a little baby who had died, Catherine prepared herself to see it looking all funny and twisted and deformed like that little calf that had come out all wrong. Once in the small front room, Catherine took no notice of the people or the food, or of Gladys Presley and the little live baby in bed with her, but slipped away from her mother and went straight to the small, open casket standing by the window. Fearfully she peered into it. Then her fear changed to puzzled astonishment. The tiny baby lying there was perfectly formed. It didn’t even look dead; it just looked asleep. She glanced around at the grownups. Perhaps they’d made a mistake.

Later on Catherine just couldn’t help telling her best friend that in her opinion they could’ve made a mistake putting that little infant in the casket. That baby didn’t look to he like he had anything wrong with him. Couldn’t he be alive and just real quiet, resting or something?

But Catherine’s best friend was one of Vernon Presley’s younger sisters and therefore, being infinitely better informed about the whole matter, was in a position to put Catherine right. She told her not to be so simple; of course the baby was dead. Wouldn’t Mrs. Edna Robinson, who’d midwifed most of the babies in East Tupelo, and Dr. Hunt, whom Vernon had fetched because of the emergency – wouldn’t they be expected to know everything there was to know about these things? She went on to tell more: that the second twin – the one who was all right – hadn’t come out till a whole half-hour after the first and that he hadn’t arrived till 4:30 in the morning. They’d already named him Elvis Aron.

“But what about the other?” Catherine timidly queried. “Do they name babies who are … like that, or what?”

She received an impatient look. Of course they did; they already had. How would he get into heaven without a name? He was named Jesse Garon and he was go ing to be buried near all the Presleys in the cemetery at Priceville so that he wouldn’t be lonely.


Jessie Garon’s grave marker at Graceland

Elvis had survivor’s guilt all his life. He wondered if he had somehow, by osmosis in the womb, stolen the strength of his twin. Had he lived only because Jessie had died? Jessie was part of the Presley family mythology. Jessie was not swept under the carpet and never mentioned again. He was a living part of the family. Elvis would pray to Jessie, and talk to Jessie – not just as an impressionable child, but throughout his life. What would it have been like if Elvis had had a sibling? What would have changed? Elvis was a sui generis figure in the culture: the fact that he had had a twin is so fascinating. Were they identical? These are questions that are interesting to contemplate, although some folks go a bit far with it. (You know, Jessie is alive and well and running a service station in Tallahassee, or whatever.)

Vernon Presley and Gladys Smith were a young couple, impatient and eager to be together (you can see it in the photo at the top of this post). They had almost no prospects, outside of Gladys’ ferocious get-up-and-go nature. They were sharecroppers sometimes, Vernon got odd jobs, Gladys got odd jobs as a seamstress, she picked crops with Elvis strapped to her back.

The very fact that he lived gave him great importance, understandably, to his parents, especially when it was found out that after the horrific experience of giving birth to the twins on January 8, 1935, Gladys couldn’t have any more children. It is not at all surprising or unusual that Gladys would hover over her son, as long as he lived, even long past the age when it was necessary.

When he became famous, she was worried but not surprised. She always knew he was marked for something special. Because, like Harry Potter, he was “the boy who lived”.

On January 8, 2013, I woke up with the sun, scraped my car of frost, and drove from Memphis to Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis’ birthplace. It’s about 100 miles from Memphis. The highway careened through farmlands, glittering with frost, steam rising off of the creeks and ponds. The road was nearly empty. I listened to church services on the radio, with raucous choirs singing for Jesus. I hit Tupelo before 9 a.m. It was quiet.

I stopped at the Veterans Park on the outskirts of town, a beautiful area with a pond and a fountain, and some pushy ducks who basically ran me off the lawn. The Elvis Presley Birthplace museum was closed, but that was fine because everything I wanted to see was out in plain view. There was the two-room shack, built by Vernon himself, the shack that was such a step-up to the hardscrabble Presley family, and so important to their feeling of independence. The shack was longer than I realized, although I’ve seen pictures. It has a little front porch with a battered swing, there are windows along the sides. The shack is placed in the center of a circle of stones, marking events in the Presley life during their time in Tupelo: The tornado that destroyed most of Tupelo when Elvis was a year old. Elvis winning a prize singing “Old Shep” at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair when he was 10 years old. (He would return to perform at that same fair in 1956, now an icon in a blue velvet shirt and white bucks, hometown boy made more than good.) The Presleys moved to Memphis in 1948. Vernon packed up the family in “an old ’39 Plymouth” (according to Elvis many years later) and they were off to seek a better life.

I was the only person at the Presley Birthplace. The frost still glittered on the grass. There was a modern brick church across the street, but it was still too early for services. The sun was just coming up, and everything was cold and still and quiet.

Along with the little shack, there was also the old Assembly of God church that Elvis used to attend with his parents (it had been moved from its original location). The church was just what I had pictured: homely, plain, white-painted, nothing special. But one of the most important places in Elvis’ childhood.

Solitude promotes reflection. I grew up in a town with deep colonial roots: homes along the Main Street are dated from the 1730s, 1740s. Except for the addition of streetlamps and sidewalks and stoplights, nothing has changed. If you catch that street at a certain time, dawn or sunset, when it’s emptied out, the area unfolds its history to you, in images, sensations, memories. You can almost imagine yourself “back then”. I grew up feeling that history around me. We were taught about it in school, yes, but it felt different when you grew up in a town that still has a little wishing well from the 1800s, and a library that used to be the spot for local Revolutionary patriots to meet up and make plans in the 1760s and 1770s. Sometimes when you go to these historically rich places, you can believe in other dimensions running alongside our own. You can feel that time is not linear, but stacked, or clear, like water: you can look down through it.

That’s what I felt, wandering around the little Presley shack and the Assembly of God church, on a frosty morning before anyone else was up. Time and history felt clear and I was looking down through it.


Elvis and his friends, 1943

A ’39 Plymouth sits near the parking lot, out in the elements. You can walk right up to it and touch it if you want to. I sat right near it and had some coffee. It was cold. The details of the car (not the actual Presley vehicle; that one is long-gone) were fascinating: the windshield wipers, the interior, the gas cap. There is so much space inside! You could certainly load up that thing with all of your belongings.

After that, I headed into town. Tupelo is plain and flat and simple. There’s not much to it. The main street area is surrounded by fields and giant turbines and silos. You can feel the space stretching out around the town, something I never get used to down in these small Southern towns, coming as I do from the congested East Coast, where each thing pushes up against the next thing. Here, space dominates, you can feel it at the end of every street.

Tupelo has an interesting history, Elvis notwithstanding. The town was poverty-struck, but also bustling and ambitious, a hub of industry and business and hustle. Tupelo is proud of their native son. He went far, farther than anyone else from Tupelo (farther than anyone else from anywhere, Neil Armstrong being the most obvious exception). Elvis’ emotional ties were in Memphis, although he did return once to Tupelo, most famously on September 26, 1956 to perform at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair, the very same fair where he won 5th place in the talent show when he was 10 years old, singing the weepy dirge about a dog that dies, “Old Shep”.

Elvis had been on the rise for a year or so, but with Colonel Parker’s management and Elvis’ television appearances, 1956 was the year when “it” broke, “it” being the cultural tidal wave. Elvis’ return to Tupelo occurred right before the opening of his first film, Love Me Tender. At the start of 1956 he was still a regional phenomenon, although that was quickly changing. By September, he wasn’t a regional phenomenon anymore. He belonged to everyone. He stood on a platform in the middle of the fairgrounds, wearing a blue velvet shirt (given to him by Natalie Wood), black pants, and white bucks. He’s so close to the crowd that it looks almost dangerous for him. A girl did bust loose from the crowd at run up onstage at one point, but she didn’t throw herself at Elvis. She made it up to him, and then stood there, staring at him, but frozen. He’s in the middle of playing a song, stops and glances at her, and says, friendly, unfazed, “Hi.” She is then hustled off by a cop.

Elvis gets close to those reaching hands, sometimes brushing against them, giving those girls a thrill, but he senses the distance he needs. They want to touch him, and he allows them to, briefly, but then he is off, to another part of the stage. He gives them what they want, and leaves them wanting more.

The pictures of that day are world-famous by now. Gladys and Vernon traveled to Tupelo to watch their son perform, and according to many people who knew Gladys, she experienced extreme anxiety, almost to the level of PTSD, returning to the town where she had known such hardship. But in the interviews done with Gladys that day, she is bubbly, proud, and happy. She was a survivor, a gritty woman who didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve (not in public anyway, that would have seemed very bad form to Gladys). You would never know that that proud Mama in the interviews almost hadn’t accompanied Elvis to the show, because it was in Tupelo, and because her memories of that town were so painful.

Where those fairgrounds once were is now the main square in Tupelo in front of City Hall: a vast lawn, with circular steps, benches, a big Christmas tree, and a beautiful statue of Elvis, onstage in the very spot he had performed in 1956. The statue was erected in 2012. The statue is isolated in the middle of the large lawn. Nothing is around it. He is highlighted against the low buildings of Main Street, nothing huddles up alongside of him. There is no other context for the statue.

It hovers in thin air. It’s lonely up there in the stratosphere.

When I arrived in the main square in Tupelo, it was empty. Emptier than anything ever is in New York City. The town hadn’t quite woken up yet, although I imagine people were getting ready to head out to church around that time. There wasn’t much traffic. The shadows were still long. The fields around the town came right up behind the buildings encircling the Square. The frost gleamed white. I almost wiped out right in front of City Hall on a patch of ice. The space is impressive. (My perspective is admittedly skewed because there is NO space around me where I live. Even the gorgeous expanse of Central Park is pushed in on all sides by apartment buildings).

The Tupelo Hardware Store, still open and running to this day, is where Gladys (famously) bought Elvis a guitar for his 12th birthday. He wanted a rifle. She got him a guitar. I knew it would be closed, but I was sitting on a bench in the park, looking around me, and saw, further up the main drag, a sign floating on the top of a building.

I love continuity, and I love places that remember. It’s just a regular hardware store. It sells tools and paint and ladders. But an important moment in 20th century culture went down there.

Elvis looks lonely in the middle of that big field.

It wasn’t just fame that brought him alone-ness. He started out that way. He was born into a world of poverty, a circumstance isolating in and of itself. But his first moments on this earth were accompanied by his parents mourning for the stillborn twin, who had preceded him into the world: in other words, he entered into a family that already missed someone. He felt that lack all his life: Somebody else should be with me right now. He had spent 9 months curled up next to this person in the womb. Elvis, of course, would not remember that part of his existence, but it cannot be argued that he wasn’t there, that he didn’t experience it in some way that became incredibly meaningful to him.

The family mythology of Jessie intensified with his fame. I’ve said before that I think, if you boiled Elvis down to his essence, what would be left as “the thing” that created him and defined him, it wouldn’t be blatant sexuality or even musicality. What he was really about was loneliness. And it was the loneliness that drove him as hard as he was driven. We all experience loneliness but imagine a loneliness so acute that at a very young age you would set out to destroy it once and for all, to turn yourself, by sheer willpower, into a man who was never ever alone.

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He wasn’t a member of a group or ensemble, like The Beatles or the Stones. He didn’t “make it” surrounded by others. He made it on his own. He had help acquiring his position. Sam Phillips helped. Dewey Phillips helped. Scotty Moore and Bill Black helped. His first manager, Bob Neal, helped. Movie producer Hal Wallis helped. His supportive girlfriends helped by believing in him. Colonel Parker helped. But without Elvis putting forth his own essence, so fearlessly, none of those individuals would be remembered today, or at least not in the same way. He was a singular figure, and – crucially – he felt that singularity. Now, we are all special. But there’s special and then there’s SPECIAL. As Dave Marsh observed so beautifully in his book Elvis, if there was one thing Elvis really wanted “it was to be an unignorable man.”

Kurt Russell has said that he loves Elvis Presley movies “because Elvis is in them”. You can count on one hand the artists who generate such a response. It has to do with the projection of Self, in the way that John Wayne did, or Steve McQueen did, a very short list of others. Such figures, who seem inevitable once they have arrived (“how on earth did we manage before they came around?”), who become engrained in the culture, signifying/symbolizing something inchoate and yet as present as the Mississippi River, imprinting themselves on every aspect of the landscape, will always stand alone.

Crowds will clamor up against such figures. We are drawn to those who project Self in such a fearless way. It opens up space for us to do the same. Such figures don’t do things TO us, they allow things to happen, they make space FOR things in US. These figures will often respond to fame by “entouraging up”, surrounding themselves with a Praetorian Guard of trusted friends and associates. This makes sense. The Guard provides a small periphery of breathing room, because right outside, the crowds push and jostle and grab.

Behind the Mayhem and Noise of the crowd – the image we have, the image we sometimes can glimpse, if we make our minds very still and very open, is of a person in the middle of a vast space. Untouchable. Singular. Alone.

The statue looks huge from some angles, small from others. He reaches out and down to touch the hands reaching up to him. Trying – still – to bridge that gap. To be less alone.

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33 Responses to “Animals don’t hate, and we’re supposed to be better than them.” – Elvis Presley, the Twin Who Lived

  1. Noel Shine says:

    Thanks Sheila, if I never get to Elvis country, I feel I’ve been there through your eyes and words, this past week. You articulate in a sensitive and intelligent fashion how many of us feel about the guy and the holy ground which spawned him. God bless Elvis, he will outlive us all!

  2. gina in al says:

    Its amazing how much I can see Elvis in his father’s face in that first picture. That picture is new to me. I live fairly close to Tupelo (Huntsville and Birmingham AL) but I have never gone there. I’m pleased that they are taking such nice care of the the ’39 Plymouth, it appears to be in good condition. I am loving your series from Memphis!

    • sheila says:

      Vernon was quite a handsome fellow, wasn’t he? Look at how Gladys has her arm thrown around him – this isn’t a polite engagement photo. I think you can really see the relationship there.

      and yes, the car right out there in the elements. There was a nice letter on display from the curator at the car museum at Graceland – basically the “’39 Plymouth” comment from Elvis in the 60s or 70s was all they had to go on, as to what kind of car the Presleys had. So they found one. It’s quite a vehicle. I am trying to imagine parallel parking in that thing!

      It would be worth a little road trip to Tupelo – although it would have been great to see it when it was more woken up, with more people, I really liked having the whole place to myself. It’s pretty, in a very unassuming way.

  3. Clementine Moriarty says:

    Fantastic thoughts on Elvis , Gladys and Tupelo!! Since……….. today…….. is Jan.8……you have provided me with another…… gift……… on Elvis’ Birthday!! How lucky can one girl be. TYVM!

    • sheila says:

      Gladys was such an interesting woman.

      And I feel lucky that you frequent my site, Clementine – your comments are always a joy!!

  4. april says:

    The lip curl… it’s from *Vernon*? O.M.G. – who knew?

  5. Lian Lunson says:

    This is beautiful and superb and rich and lovely and complex and everything I think he may have been x

  6. This is appropro of nothing in particular, Sheila, except I came across it while I was researching a post and I know you love a good Elvis “moment” as much as I do….The whole thing is worthwhile, but if you’ve never seen it, the stretch between 6:30 and 7:30 where she talks about the birth of “Eternal Flame” is priceless:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOd7mxcpguA

  7. SeanG says:

    Hi Sheila, Have you seen those twins in the band The Garden? Wyatt and Fletcher Shears? There are almost too beautiful like Elvis was.

    • sheila says:

      Sean – Not familiar with The Garden at all – but will look them up. Thank you! Beautiful twins?? All kinds of intriguing implications – especially with Elvis, who was so singular. It’s almost too good to be true.

      Thanks, Sean!

  8. Melissa Sutherland says:

    My birthday is tomorrow, stuck between Elvis and Richard Nixon. And same day and year as Rod Stewart, who now has 9 children, I think. Am actually back in NJ/NYC to celebrate (as it is a big one) and enjoying the trip immensely. Not much warmer here than NH (it was -8 when I woke up on Thursday!) but nice to be back. Stay warm.

  9. Johnny says:

    Great post Sheila! The way you write and the words you use make me feel like I’m in that place without having gone at all.

    It’s interesting how mrs. Hall was actually more curious about the twin that hadn’t lived. I read that Jesse Garon was buried in a shoe box in an unmarked grave. It’s incredible how the most ordinary places or simplest moments became extraordinary because of Elvis. On that day on the 8th of January, those babies (that baby) didn’t receive any crowd.

  10. sheila says:

    Thanks, Johnny!

    It’s very touching to go to Graceland and see the small stone for Jessie, and all the little gifts that people have left there.

  11. Lovett Reed says:

    Enjoyed your post. Back in the fall of 2012 I was in “Elvis country” but I was in northern Mississsippi to visit Faulkner country, Yoknapatawpha country and the Delta. I don’t think Elvis was about loneliness. My Dad’s twin brother also died at birth and my father was one of the happiest men I ever knew. Elvis was very much a man of the south (Scots-Irish heritage). He went into the Army w/o complaint, he was a deep believer in Jesus, he loved his mother, he worked and dreamed. He became dependent on all kinds of pills (to give him all kinds of thrills) and that was his downfall. If I had been working in Memphis in 1977 (I’m a retired DEA agent) I could have easily made a case against Elvis’ prescribing MD and the MD would have gone to prison for a while and lost his DEA license. Marilyn, Hendrix, Morrison, Elvis, Lennon all gone too soon but that’s part of the legend. What if?

    • sheila says:

      Lovett –

      Thanks for reading. I know everything there is to know about Elvis – you’re new here, so you haven’t witnessed the sheer volume of Elvis content I’ve got going on here – and I have come to my own conclusions in regards to his character and emotions, based on lots of research and lots of contemplation. I also don’t agree with the common “What if” stance in regards to his career, and have written extensively about that.

      // My Dad’s twin brother also died at birth and my father was one of the happiest men I ever knew. //

      There is much evidence that Elvis did not share your father’s good fortune.

  12. Ana Roland says:

    I spent a wonderful month in Tupelo. Everyone you encountered in this small town had their ELVIS story. Some who dated him…It was a memorable experience breathing, living & hearing everything ELVIS in his birthplace. The chapel was also quite moving to hear his GOSPEL music in that wonderful space.

  13. JC Goncalves says:

    I’M AN OLD MAN NOW, BUT SOMETIMES I STILL FEEL VERY YOUNG, AND ELVIS PRESLEY AND TRUE OLD ROCK AND ROLL HAVE A LOT TO DO WITH IT. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU.

  14. Olav says:

    A really nice read! You do have a way with words. Thank you. One day I hope to make the trip from Amsterdam to Tupelo (and Memphis) to visit the places you describe so well.

    I enjoy the visits to your blog very much!

  15. Bill Wolfe says:

    I know of two works of popular culture which explore Jessie Garon’s role in our collective imagination. Nik Cohn’s 1975 novel “King Death” deals with a title character who may or may not be Elvis’s living twin, while the short-lived TV series “The Chronicle” (2001) had an episode set at a convention of Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas, with one turning out to be Jessie Garon. Each assumes that there is some truth about Jessie that we need to understand if we are to get at the essence of Elvis.

    Re: Elvis the Lonely. For me , maybe the best expression of this is his recording of the Pomus/Shuman song, “I Need Somebody.” I don’t think it’s very well known, but it truly feels like it was recorded in a dark studio at 3 a.m.

    • sheila says:

      Bill – I don’t know The Chronicle – I’ll have to track that down. // Each assumes that there is some truth about Jessie that we need to understand if we are to get at the essence of Elvis. //

      So true.

      Have you heard Scott Walker’s song “about” Jessie? It’s not really about Jessie – hell, it’s not even a “song” – not in any conventional classification anyway – but it’s about Jessie Presley and 9/11 and it’s a TRIP.

      • Bill Wolfe says:

        No, I haven’t heard Walker’s work. The description makes it *sound* like a trip, for sure.

      • Jessie says:

        Each assumes that there is some truth about Jessie that we need to understand if we are to get at the essence of Elvis.
        (apologies for butting in but) I am fascinated by this excellent thought and the precis of the works you give Bill — this doesn’t explore Jessie so much as reflect the truth of your observation, but Nick Cave’s early work (including his first book featuring a man with a stillborn twin) is saturated in his Elvis obsession. Tupelo, the opener of the second Bad Seeds album draws on JLH’s Tupelo Blues to reimagine the night of Elvis’s birth as the night of both tornado and flood: no bird can fly, no fish can swim until the King is born! / .. / In a clapboard shack with a roof of tin /…/ Saturday gives what Sunday steals. The King, he sings, will walk, carrying a burden out of Tupelo. And what’s that album about Elvis (and the South) called? The Firstborn is Dead.

        This post is always a great read Sheila and those photos of the statue at the end is so moving. Sorry again to crash but the Walker mention caught my eye — an excellent haunting track, I second the recommendation!

        • sheila says:

          Jessie – I have goosebumps reading your comment.

          Never apologize for “crashing”!

          I’d have to check but I think Greil Marcus covers Nick Cave’s obsession in his great and weird book Dead Elvis. I’ve never done a deep dive into Nick Cave’s work – not for any reason, it’s just something I “missed” along the way. Jim Jarmusch’s Elvis obsession has also informed so much of his work – his movies are Elvis-haunted. It’s weird. The story gets into you if you’re into it.

          Jessie was part of Elvis’ life – he missed his brother. How would things have changed if Elvis had a sibling? Also – that this most singular figure in our culture – had a TWIN … it’s just almost too symbolic to even contemplate. Jessie’s remains are not at Graceland of course – but Elvis left a place for him in the family plot. There’s one space left in that family plot – a small space of grace – for Lisa Marie.

    • sheila says:

      oh and Bill – I absolutely love “I Need Somebody” and agree with your observation about it.

  16. Donna says:

    Some folks head to Graceland today or here in Austin, to Chuy’s Tex-Mex eatery on this high holy day. I head here. You are the queen of all things Elvis and you have taught me so much over the years. I am an identical twin. My twin lives in Seattle and is a visitor to this blog as well. We both have the same kidney disease that killed Gladys. Sadly she was born before the interventions we have today like dialysis and transplants.
    Happy Birthday to the King. He was without his twin! How sad and lonely!

    • sheila says:

      Donna – wow, you are an identical twin. And hello to your twin, who also reads here!

      The Elvis twin factor is such an essential part of his mythology. There are many “what ifs” in his life – and in general I don’t like to dwell on them – but “what would it have been like for Elvis if his brother had lived” is undeniably intriguing. And I know it haunted him.

      Best to you!

      • Donna Thomas says:

        I trusted my twin who always told me that Elvis’s mom died from the same genetic kidney disease that both of us have received transplants to treat. She was wrong. Further research states she had hepatitis and heart failure and sadly died at 46. This is not the place to make Elvis errors, I’m sorry.

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