Dionne quintuplets
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The Dionne Quintuplets (more appropriately referred to as the Dionne sisters by the remaining quintuplets) (born on May 28, 1934) are the first quintuplets known to survive their infancy. The sisters were born just outside Callander, Ontario, Canada.
The chances of having identical quintuplets are one in 57 million. The Dionne girls were born two months prematurely with the assistance of Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and two midwives, Madame Legros and Madame Lebel.
The five identical sisters were:
- Annette Lillianne Marie Dionne (Allard)
- Cécile Marie Emilda Dionne (Langlois)
- Emilie Marie Jeanne Dionne (Emilie died at 20 at her convent on August 6, 1954.)
- Marie Reina Alma Dionne (Houle) (died February 27, 1970 of an apparent blood clot of the brain in Montreal, Canada)
- Yvonne Edouilda Marie Dionne (died June 23, 2001 of cancer)
In their book, Family Secrets, Cecilie, Yvonne, and Annette Dionne reveal that after a seizure, Emilie had rolled onto her stomach, and unable to raise her face off of a pillow, accidentally suffocated.
Although associated with Callander, they were actually born outside the community, in a farmhouse in unregistered territory, and their births were registered in nearby Corbeil. The Dionne Quintuplets Museum was moved to the nearest city, North Bay, at the intersection of Highway 11 and the Trans Canada Highway, in order to have greater exposure to the travelling public.
Their father, Oliva, already poor with five children, (a sixth, son Leo, died of pneumonia shortly after birth) was approached by fair exhibitors two days after the quintuplets were born, who wanted to display his children on tour once they were healthy enough. Reluctantly, after speaking to his wife, Elzire, he signed a contract. He made a deal with the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition, a type of world fair, to use the money to feed and clothe his instantly expanded family. The babies would live in a facility specialized for them on the fairgrounds. (At the time it was entirely usual for preemies in incubators to be displayed at fairs.[1])
Public outcry over this apparent exploitation of Oliva and Elzire's newborns led swiftly to widespead condemnation of the parents, particularly Oliva. Soon, the Ontario government interfered. The custody of the five babies was withdrawn from their parents by the Ontario government of Mitchell Hepburn in 1935, originally for a guardianship of two years. They were put under the guidance of Dr. Dafoe and three other guardians. Ironically, the children were removed from their parents' legal custody to protect them from exploitation and to ensure their survival into healthy toddlers. The government quickly realized the massive interest in Cecile, Annette, Marie, Yvonne, and Emilie, and proceeded to exploit them for financial gain. The girls were made the wards of the provincal crown until they reached the age of 18. Across the road from their birthplace, the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery was built for only the five girls and their caregivers to live in. The observation gallery, where thousands of people watched from meshed screens as the children played twice a day, became part of "Quintland," a theme-park like atmosphere showcasing and selling Quintuplet merchandise.
Approximately 6,000 people per day visited the observation gallery to view the Dionne sisters. Close to three million people walked through the gallery between 1936 and 1943. In 1934, the quintuplets brought in about $1 million, and they attracted in total about $51 million of tourist revenue to Ontario. Quintland became Ontario's biggest tourist attraction of the era, at the time surpassing Niagara Falls and Shirley Temple.
From infancy until the age of nine, Marie, Cecile, Yvonne, Emilie, and Annette lived in the hospital, and were not allowed out of sight, to have friends, to participate in family chores, to attend village schools, or to have contact with their parents and siblings. Cared for by nurses, who the girls sometimes viewed as maternal figures, the five children lived essentially as one unit, with little understanding or knowledge of the world outside the nursery fence.
The sisters, and their likenesses and images, along with Dr. Dafoe, were used to publicize commercial products such as corn syrup and Quaker Oats among thousands of other popular brands. They starred in four Hollywood films:
In November 1943, Oliva Dionne finally won a long custody battle. The quintuplets, aged nine, moved into a mansion up the road from Quintland, joining their parents and siblings, who were virtual strangers to them, to live as a family. The yellow brick, 20-room mansion was paid for out of the quintuplets' fund, unknown to them at the time. The home had all the luxuries of the time, including telephones, electricity and hot water. The mansion was nicknamed "The Big House."
The sisters began increasingly appearing and performing during various functions. In particular, their performance of "There'll Always Be an England" (for the war effort) irritated some French-Canadians. Footage of the event from a 1978 Film Board of Canada video hosted and narrated by Pierre Berton shows the 13-year-olds reciting their names and singing, while looking extremely unhappy and bored.
In 1965 the four surviving quints, Annette, Cecile, Marie, and Yvonne, published a book called We Were Five. This account, along with a biography by Pierre Berton, informed a 1994 TV movie about them, Million Dollar Babies (1994), produced by CBS and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and starring Roy Dupuis and Céline Bonnier. The next year, the three remaining alleged they were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of their father, and that a member of the clergy urged them to cope by wearing thick coats. They also accused their mother of physical and verbal abuse, and described their siblings as envious and cruel, and telling them the family would have been better off if they had not been born.
In 1998, after many years of refusal by the provincial government to heed the pleas of the sisters, now in their 60s, living in poverty and all epileptic, the government of Premier Mike Harris gave Cecile, Yvonne, and Annette Dionne compensation of a lump sum of four million Canadian dollars for the years of Quintland exploitation. A provincial inquest into their case and childhood treatment was also promised.[citation needed]
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