Sisters

Photographer and writer Deborah Donnelley ’84— sister of Myra ’79 and Diana—knows what it means to have sisters. “When I was growing up, there was never any such thing as life without them,” Donnelley writes in her new book, In the Company of Sisters. She photographed more than 250 sets of sisters over five years—like twins “Sarah and Ann,” photographed at age 10, left—then revisited them and interviewed them years later. “There appear to be certain pivotal moments when sisters’ connections to each other are pressed to the foreground, challenged and ultimately reconfigured,” Donnelley notes.

Sarah (to left in photo), interviewed at age 20, agreed. “We’ve come to think less about our differences,” she told Donnelley. “The other day Ann and I were sitting quietly together in the same room. It made me think about how authentic a relationship between two people can be….When we come back together after a long time, it’s like we tap into the most pure feeling in each other’s company—feeling that isn’t about words.”

“No matter what, where we are, for me, is home,” says Ann.