SWAINSBORO, Ga. — Karin Screws insists she could see the personality of each of her quadruplets as they lay in incubators at University Hospital.
"We could tell that Brianna was prissy," she said. "That Buckley was the most studious. Jared was 100 percent boy. Brinsley was definitely the athlete."
Keith Screws had been battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma for about five years when they made the decision to do in vitro fertilization with sperm he had frozen before he started treatment. He died about six months after they were born and she has been raising them with the help of family ever since.
"We didn't want that to stop us at all," Mrs Screws said, of the possibility of being a single parent. "We always knew that we would have kids."
But what made them celebrities back when they were born in 1992, as the state's first quadruplets born from in vitro fertilization, is now probably the least interesting thing about the Screws quadruplets at age 16. Each in his or her own way has excelled, mostly in ways different from each other. And it means that from the time school ends around 3 p.m. until sometimes 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. every weekday and into the weekend, Mrs Screws is in a maroon minivan littered with clothes, band instruments and the detritus of fast-food restaurants.
"We live in the van," Brianna joked, with their real home 20 miles away in rural Emanuel County. They are sitting in "the kitchen," El Valle Mexican Restaurant near Swainsboro High School, where they often catch a meal on the run. Three of them just completed marching band practice and in an hour Jared has a tennis match and Buckley has orchestra practice. Jared is captain of the marching band drum team, Brinsley plays French horn and Buckley is on the danceline. Brianna is a cheerleader for the varsity football team and participates in competition cheerleading.
"She's the main flyer, she's always at the top of the pyramid," Mrs. Screws said. "That's what happens when you weigh 3 pounds at birth."
They were born seven weeks premature but remarkably show no ill effects from it now. Jared and Brinsley both compete in tennis and Brinsley is the starting shortstop on the softball team.
"I was very blessed that they were very healthy," Mrs. Screws said. They just got their progress reports from school and Buckley volunteers hers first.
"I'll start with the worst. Biology 95, Spanish 97," she ticks off. "I asked for extra credit next week."
"Why?" Brianna asked, puzzled. Buckley is battling to be first in her class and plans to take classes at East Georgia College in Swainsboro next year. College - probably at the University of Georgia - is looming ahead of them.
"I want them to get HOPE scholarships," Mrs. Screws said.
"I want to go to UGA," Buckley said. "It depends on who else goes."
"You keep making good grades and they will come to you," Mrs. Screws said. Brinsley thinks she can land a softball scholarship "if I keep my grades up."
"If they've got one for tennis, I'm going for it," Jared said. He and Brinsley are going to a tennis camp this summer at UGA "so I'm hoping they'll make connections," Mrs. Screws said.
Brianna is torn between becoming a marine biologist or a veterinarian - if she can pass geometry, which is also a battle for Jared and Brinsley. Buckley has already blown through it.
"They didn't use my Geometry notebook," Buckley said.
"Where is it?" Brinsley asked.
"I gave it to you all," Buckley said.
"It's in my room," Jared said.
"The teachers tell them, 'Get together, do your homework, ask each other questions.' And they don't," said Mrs. Screws, a special education teacher at Swainsboro Elementary School. "When it's time to do homework, they just each go to their rooms. Buckley's already had Geometry. You could be asking her."
"I forgot a lot of it," Buckley said.
"I plan to forget it right after the class," Brianna joked.
Now that Brianna has moved into the guest bedroom of the five-bedroom home, each has his own room.
"That's been the problem with Brinsley and Brianna being in the same room together," Mrs. Screws said. "Brianna wants pink and purple polka dots and Brinsley wants camouflage and the deer that she shot over the bed."
Brinsley is her tomboy but is also the only one to go to prom this year, which meant a rare encounter with makeup.
"She's beautiful, all fixed up," Mrs. Screws said, as Brinsley slouches lower in her chair, blushing.
"That's probably not going to happen again," Jared said.
"She never wears makeup," Brianna said.
"Unless we force it on her," Buckley said.
"Church and prom," Brinsley said.
There is a lot of good-natured teasing and sometimes the girls gang up on Jared. He is talking about his tennis doubles partner, who he is facing in an hour in a first-round match of the Pine Tree Festival tennis tournament.
"We've been doubles partners for five, six years?" he said. Simultaneously, without looking at each other, all three girls hold up three fingers to him. Three years, he admits
"They take advantage of it sometimes," Jared said of his situation.
"But you know lots of girls," Mrs. Screws said.
"Yes, you do," Buckley said.
None of them have gotten their license yet, so Mrs. Screws takes them through their various practices and recitals. And she likes it that way.
"I know where they are," Mrs. Screws said. "I know who they're with. They are very patient. They sit in the car with me, waiting on each other to get through. They do their homework in the car."
At home (on Keith Screws Road), three of them have just returned from a band trip to Orlando, Fla. Brianna was also out Friday night helping to DJ a party, so Mrs. Screws found herself with rare time alone.
"I was going to do a lot of stuff," she said. "Until I came here, sat in this chair and read a book. It was great. I enjoyed it."
The house sits on 62 acres, in a spot that Keith Screws picked out.
"He didn't get to see it built but he knew they were going to," Mrs. Screws said. The community pitched in to help - all of the labor and most of the material, furniture and appliances were donated. Mr. Screws has a presence there still. A photo of him, holding one of the babies, hangs on the living room wall.
"That's me," Jared said.
"His bald head," Karen said. "Keith was bald at that time too."
Friends and family put together memory books with stories about him for the children to read later, "to help us to get to know him better," Brianna said. Brinsley and Jared use his old shotgun for skeet shooting. And just the other day, Buckley said, someone at a store was talking to her about his Trans Am.
"We sold it after the dog threw up in it," Mrs. Screws said wistfully. "That car was just never the same."
She sees parts of him in all of the children.
"Keith could raise one eyebrow up," Mrs. Screws said. "I can't. But Brianna can."
Brianna promptly shows off her talent, and her brother and sisters move their brows up an down trying to match her. The other day, Mrs. Screws rediscovered a tape of them skiing in Gatlinburg when they were 5 years old and she pops it in the VCR.
"I'm in the green pants, right?" Brinsley asked.
"You weren't going to wear the pink pants," Mrs. Screws said, which Brianna is wearing.
On screen, a tiny Buckley slides down the hill and mows down Brianna.
"And there you kill me," Brianna said.
"Sorry," Buckley said. " I can't control."
Mrs. Screws' face flashes on the screen as she pursues her tots across the snow.
"I bet you were scared to death," Brinsley said.
"I was worn out," Mrs. Screws said.
She and her late husband talked about the possibilities before they went through in vitro fertilization.
"We knew he might not be there and we discussed it but I don't feel like it was ever an option that we wouldn't have kids," she said. "God knew what he was doing when he gave me four because that kept me busy enough to keep going without Keith."
The scene on the TV switches to inside a cabin. Buckley, with little coaxing, hops up to sing "You Are My Sunshine." She ends with a sudden operatic flourish on "aawAAYYY," prompting everyone in the living room to howl with laughter. It is still funny after it is rewound and played again
"Doesn't that sound just like you now?" Mrs. Screws said.
In the kitchen preparing for a rare sit-down meal together, Buckley's feet constantly pace through dance moves, seemingly on their own, as Brianna tells a complicated story about a poetry assignment. This summer, Buckley will compete for Dancer of the Year at a DanceAmerica competition in New York. She is constantly asking her sisters to critique her performance, Brianna said.
"She'll keep on us until we tell her straight up," Brianna said. "Most of the time she does really good so there's nothing bad to say. But then she won't believe it."
At the table, Jared is mixing all of his food together in a bowl while Brianna insists none of her food is allowed to touch. Mr. Screws' high school picture hangs on the refrigerator while a close imitation in Jared plows through his food at the table across the room.
"I've got four great reminders of him because I can see little bits of him in each of them," Mrs. Screws said.
She is asked if she will remarry "all the time," she said. "I don't know, there just isn't much time for that."
For now, her priorities - all four of them - are right in front of her.
"I've done my job," she said. "I'm not a great homemaker. I'm not Betty Crocker in the kitchen. But I've got great kids."
Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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WOW!! What a wonderful Mother's Day story. Octo-Mom got all this worldwide publicity recently. This story right here is the type of story that should be getting the worldwide publicity!
Wonderful story! To the Screws family, thank you so much for sharing your story with the community. It's VERY rare to hear positive things regarding teenagers. Mrs. Screws, God has truly blessed you and your late husband, your children, and your friends/neighbors. God has given the rest of us a blessing (and a smile) in your uplifting story. Happy Mother's Day to you, Mrs. Screws! PS: I, too, do the "no food touching" thing. It's pretty funny, and runs in the family.
Beautiful story for Mother's Day! Happy Mother's Day Mrs. Screws
Happy Mothers Day.Wonderful story.
I had the honor of doing the ultrasounds on Karin during her pregnancy and I was blessed by God to have the privilidge to get t o know her and Keith very well. What you see today, is what was there all those years ago. The love of two God fearing people, the support of their loving family shown through over 16 years ago as it obviously does in the wonderful young teenagers the quads have become. I was trully blessed to have been a part of this.