To learn something worth it

1. The Secret Twin
The twins, Kenneth and Julian, were born a few years after the turn of the century. At
first, their parents, Gertrude and Henry, thought they were identical, because the twins looked
exactly alike. Both had dark hair and deep brown eyes. Kenneth’s son, your author Don, would
later inherit these qualities.
But Gertrude and Henry quickly learned to tell the twins apart. Kenneth was slightly
larger than Julian, and, even, as infants, their personalities were distinctly different. In the
photographs of Kenneth and Julian as children, Julian smiles broadly, almost merrily, his head
cocked slightly. But Kenneth always look straight at the camera, his expression thoughtful,
serious, more intense.
We don’t know much about Julian’s childhood. Kenneth kept Julian’s existence a closely
guarded secret for more than 50 years. In fact, it was only a few years before his own death that
Kenneth revealed that he had once had a twin brother named Julian.
Still’s it’s possible to get glimpses of Julian’s early life from the letters the boys wrote
home from summer camp in 1919 and 1920. Kenneth’s letters to his mother were affectionate
and respectful, telling her about their daily activities and reassuring her that he would look after
his twin brother. “I reminded Julian about the boats and I will watch him good,” Kenneth wrote in
one letter, Julian’s letters were equally affectionate, but shorter and filled with misspelled words.
Julian’s letters also revealed glimpses of his impulsive nature. He repeatedly promised his
mother, “I will not go out in the boats alone again.”
Julian’s impulsive nature was to have a significant impact on his life. When he was 12
years old, Julian darted in front of a car and was seriously injured, sustaining a concussion. In
retrospect, Kenneth believed that that was when Julian’s problems began. Perhaps it was,
because soon after the accident Julian first got into serious trouble: He was caught stealing
money from the “poor box” at church.
Although Kenneth claimed that Julian had always been the smarter twin, Julian fell
behind in high school and graduated a year later than Kenneth. After high school, Kenneth left
the quiet farming community of Grinnell, Iowa, and moved to Minneapolis. He quickly became
self-sufficient, taking a job managing newspaper carriers. Julian stayed in Grinnell and became
apprenticed to learn typesetting. Given Julian’s propensity for adventure, it’s not surprising that
he found typesetting monotonous. In the spring of 1928, Julian left Iowa, heading east to look
for more interesting possibilities.
He found them in Tennessee. A few months after Julian left Iowa, Henry received word
that Julian had been arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 15 years in a Tennessee
state prison. Though Kenneth was only 22 years old, Henry gave him a large sum of money and
the family car and sent him to try to get Julian released.
Kenneth’s conversation with the judge in Knoxville was the first of many times that he
would deal with the judicial system on someone else’s behalf. After much negotiation, the judge
agreed: If Julian promised to leave Tennessee and never return, and Kenneth paid the cash
“fine,” Julian would be released from prison.
When Julian walked through the prison gates the next morning, Kenneth stood waiting
with a fresh suit of clothes. “Mother and Father want you to come back to Grinnell,” he told

2. Julian. But Julian would not hear of it, saying that instead he wanted to go to California to make
his fortune.
“I can’t let you do that Julian,” Kenneth said, looking hard at his twin brother. “You can’t
stop me, brother,” Julian responded with a cocky smile. Reluctantly, Kenneth kept just enough
money to buy himself a train ticket back to Iowa. He gave Julian the rest of the money and the
family car.
Julian got as far as Phoenix, Arizona, before he met his destiny. In broad daylight, he
robbed a drugstore at gunpoint. As he backed out the store, a policeman spotted him. A gun
battle followed, and Julian was shot twice. Somehow he managed to escape and holed up in a
hotel room. Alone and untended, Julian died two days later from the bullet wounds. Once again
Kenneth was sent to retrieve his twin brother.
On a bitterly cold November morning in 1928, Julian’s immediate family laid him to rest
in the family plot in Grinnell. On the one hand, Kenneth felt largely responsible for Julian’s
misguided life. “I should have tried harder to help Julian,” Kenneth later reflected. On the other
hand, Julian disgraced the family. From the day Julian was buried, the family never spoke of
him again, not even in private.
Kenneth took it upon himself to atone for the failings of his twin brother. In the fall of
1929, Kenneth entered law school in Tennessee—the same state from which he had secured
Julian’s release from prison. Three years later, at the height of the Great Depression, Kenneth
established himself as a lawyer in Sioux City, Iowa, where he would practice law for more than
50 years.
As an attorney, Kenneth Hockenbury was known for his integrity, his intensity in the
courtroom, and his willingness to take cases regardless of the client’s ability to pay. “Someone
must defend the poor,” he said repeatedly. In lieu of money, he often accepted labor from a
working man or produce from farmers.
Sixty years after Julian’s death, Kenneth died. But unlike the sparse gathering that had
attended Julian’s burial, scores of people came to pay their last respects to Kenneth
Hockenbury. “Your father helped me so much,” stranger after stranger told Don at Kenneth’s
funeral. Without question, Kenneth had devoted his life to helping others.
Why did Kenneth and Julian turn out so differently? Two boys, born on the same day
into the same middle-class family. Kenneth the conscientious, serious one, Julian the laughing
boy with mischief in his eyes. How can we explain the fundamental differences in their
personalities?