Great Stork Derby

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The Great Stork Derby was a period from 1926 to 1936 where women in Toronto competed to produce the most babies in order to qualify for an unusual bequest in a will.

The race was the product of a scheme by Toronto lawyer and financier Charles Vance Millar who bequeathed the residue of his significant estate to the woman in Toronto who could produce the most children in a ten year period after his death. The winning mothers were Annie Katherine Smith, Kathleen Ellen Nagle, Lucy Alice Timleck and Isabel Mary Maclean. Each of them received $125,000 for their nine children. Two others each received $12,500 out of court: Lillian Kenny (ten children, but two stillborn) and Pauline Mae Clarke (ten children, but several illegitimate).

Some of the money went to the Toronto Welfare Department. All of the women used the money for their families except Pauline Clarke who ran off.^{[citation needed]}