Twelve-year-old twin sisters Ada and Ida Monroe were sold together on May 3, 1920, to two brothers—fifty-eight-year-old Caleb Pritchard and sixty-one-year-old J

osiah Pritchard—for $250 total, $125 per girl, and the twins were married in a joint ceremony where Ada married Caleb and Ida married Josiah, and the twins stood side by side wearing matching flour-sack dresses their mother had sewn, holding hands throughout the ceremony becau

se they had never been separated before and they were terrified, and after the ceremony the Pritchard brothers took the twins to their farm and separated them—Ada to Caleb’s cabin, Ida to Josiah’s cabin a quarter-mile away—and for three years the twins lived within a quarter-mile of each other but we

re forbidden from seeing each other because Caleb and Josiah believed wives should focus on their husbands and not waste time with sisters. The twins saw each other exactly four times in three years—brief encounters at church where they could only whisper a few words before being pulled apart—and on October 14, 1923, the twins made a plan during one of those brief encounters: they would escape together, meet at the river at midnight, cross together, run together, survive together the way they had always survived everything together.
Ada and Ida had been born in 1908—identical twins, impossible to tell apart, closer than most siblings because they were twins and because they had grown up in a

family of nine children where the only person each twin could truly rely on was the other twin. When their father—a tenant farmer who could barely feed his family—had been offered $250 for both twins by the Pritchard brothers, he had accepted immediately. The twins had been told on a Thursday they would marry on Saturday. They had held each other and cried the night before the wedding because they knew what marriage meant—had heard older girls whispering about wedding nights—and the twins were terrified but at least they would be together, married to brothers who lived near each other, and the twins bel

ieved they could endure anything as long as they had each other.
But Caleb and Josiah separated the twins immediately after the wedding. Ada was taken to Caleb’s cabin. Ida was taken to Josiah’s cabin a quarter-mile away through the woods. The twins screamed for each other as they were pulled apart. Caleb raped Ada that first night while Ada cried and called out for her sister. Josiah raped Ida while Ida screamed Ada’s name. The twins could hear each other screaming across the quarter-mile distance and both tried to run to the other and both were stopped by their new husbands who locked the cabin doors.
For three years the twins lived a quarter-mile apart and were forbidden from seeing each other. Caleb told Ada that Ida didn’t want to see her. Josiah told Ida that Ada had forgotten about her. Both twins knew these were lies but both were trapped and couldn’t reach each other. The four times t

hey saw each other at church over three years, they held hands for the brief moments they had and made promises—”I haven’t forgotten you,” “I will never forget you,” “We will escape together,” “We will survive this together”—and on the fourth encounter in October 1923 they made a specific plan: Halloween night, when Caleb an

d Josiah would be drunk from celebrating, the twins would both climb out their windows at midnight, meet at the river, cross together, and run north toward Kentucky where they had heard child marriage laws were stricter and they might find protection.
Halloween night 1923, both twins climbed out their cabin windows at exactly midnight. Ada ran through the woods toward the river. Ida ran toward the river from the opposite direction. The twins found each other on the riverbank and held each other and cried and Ada said “We’re doing this. We’re leaving. We’re never coming back.” The river was high from recent rain—running fast and cold and dangerous—and Ada and Ida had to cross it to get to the road that led north. Ada went first—waded into the river holding a rope they had found, reaching for the far bank—and Ada slipped, went under, was swept downstream by the current, and Ida screamed and dove in after her sister.
Ida caught Ada twenty yards downstream—grabbed Ada’s dress and pulled her head above water—and both twins were being swept downstream by the current and both were struggling to keep their heads above water and Ida realized they couldn’t both make it, that the current was too strong, that one of them was going to drown. Ida made a decision. Ida pushed Ada toward the bank—used all her strength to push her twin sister toward safety—and the push sent Ida deeper into the current, sent Ida under the water, and Ida drowned while Ada dragged herself onto the riverbank.
Ada Monroe survived. Ada screamed for her sister for hours on that riverbank, screamed Ida’s name until her voice gave out, searched the river in the dark looking for Ida’s body and couldn’t find it. At dawn Ada started walking north alone—walking without her twin, walking with the knowledge that Ida had drowned saving her, walking because if Ada went back to Caleb then Ida’s death meant nothing. Ada walked for three days and reached Kentucky and found help at a church, and Ada told them everything—told them about being sold, about the marriages, about the rapes, about the escape, about Ida drowning while saving Ada—and the church women hid Ada and contacted authorities and Ada never went back to Tennessee.

Ida’s body was found five days later, washed up on the riverbank three miles downstream from where she drowned. Josiah claimed the body and buried Ida in an unmarked grave on his property. Ada was never allowed to attend her sister’s funeral. Ada never got to say goodbye.

Ada Monroe lived until 1989, dying at age eighty-one. Ada never stopped grieving her twin. Ada said in an interview in 1975: “Ida and I were sold together to two brothers when we were twelve years old. We were separated for three years—lived a quarter-mile apart but weren’t allowed to see each other. We escaped together on Halloween night 1923. We tried to cross a river. Ida drowned saving me. She pushed me toward the bank and she drowned. I am alive because my sister sacrificed herself for me. I have lived sixty-six years without my twin. Every single day I think about her. Every single day I wish I had drowned instead. Ida was twelve when she was sold. She was fifteen when she died. She died saving me. I have tried to live a life worthy of her sacrifice. I don’t know if I have succeeded. But I have tried. Every single day for sixty-six years I have tried to be worthy of my sister’s sacrifice.”