- 92-year-old ‘inseparable’ twins leave the world together
BUFFALO, New York: Identical twins Julian and Adrian Riester were born seconds apart 92 years ago. They died hours apart this week.
The Buffalo-born brothers were also brothers in the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor. Professed friars for 65 years, they spent much of that time working together at St. Bonaventure University, doing carpentry work, gardening and driving visitors to and from the airport and around town.
“It was fun to see them, just quiet, gentle souls,” Yvonne Peace, who worked at the St. Bonaventure Friary for nearly 21 years, said Friday.
They died Wednesday at St. Anthony Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, Brother Julian in the morning and Brother Adrian in the evening.
Both died of heart failure, said Father James Toal, guardian of St. Anthony Friary in St. Petersburg, where the inseparable twins lived since moving from western New York in 2008.
“It really is almost a poetic ending to the remarkable story of their lives,” St. Bonaventure spokesman Tom Missel said. “Stunning when you hear it, but hardly surprising given that they did almost everything together.” Julian and Adrian Riester were born Jerome and Irving on March 27, 1919, to a couple who already had five daughters.
They had separate rooms in the friary but one telephone extension that rang into both. It was usually the more talkative Adrian who answered, though Julian possessed a quiet authority. They never said who was born first.
Funeral services are scheduled for Monday at St. Mary Our Lady of Grace Church in St. Petersburg. Afterward, the brothers’ bodies will be flown to Buffalo and buried Wednesday at St. Bonaventure Cemetery, across the street from the university.



