The Famous Five and the price they paid
THE STORY OF CANADIAN QUINTUPLETS THAT BEGAN IN 1934 IS STILL LEAVING PAIN IN ITS WAKE
The story of Canadian quintuplets that began in 1934 still leaving pain in its wake
It was the morning of May 28, 1934. Dr Allan Roy Dafoe started spreading the news right after he helped to deliver five identical girls in a farmhouse in Corbeil, Canada.
Within six hours of their birth, the Dionne quintuplets — Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie — were photographed for all the world to see. The dangerously underweight babies were removed from the butcher’s basket keeping them warm and positioned next to their dazed mother, who had barely survived the birth herself, to get the shot.
It was the first chapter in a story of exploitation of the quintuplets.
AT FIRST, MEDIA ATTENTION SEEMED A BOON
Journalists from Chicago and Toronto brought with them water-heated incubators that almost certainly saved the girls’ lives. (Though the Dionnes were by no means poor, their farmhouse lacked electricity.) Faraway hospitals shipped in breast milk and the Red Cross provided a round-the-clock nursing team.
Within days, thousands of spectators had gathered outside the house, peeping through the windows and turning the Dionnes’ fields into a parking lot. Reporters milled around in and out of the house.
Meanwhile, the girls’ father, Oliva Dionne, worried about how he would pay for medical care and all the other expenses of five more children, in the middle of the Great Depression. He went to his priest for guidance on whether he should accept offers to publicly display the quintuplets for money. The priest offered to be his business manager.
A BUSINESS DEAL WAS STRUCK
Within a week, a deal was signed for tens of thousands of dollars — a fortune in the middle of the Great Depression. Oliva Dionne agreed that if and when his daughters were healthy, they would appear at the then Chicago World’s Fair for six months.
He regretted signing the deal almost immediately, and tried to get out of it, but the Chicago promoters refused. Meanwhile, the infant girls’ conditions worsened, and the tiny babies began to lose weight.
Dr Dafoe and the nurses sealed off a room in the house for the girls’ care, and wouldn’t let anyone in. Even their parents were allowed only glimpses.
AND THE PARENTS COULDN’T BE ALONE WITH THEIR BABIES
With the Chicago promoters trying to enforce the deal, the Ontario attorney-general’s office proposed a solution to Oliva and his wife, Elzire:
Sign over custody of the girls to the Red Cross for two years.
The Red Cross was under no obligation to the promoters; plus, they would build a state-ofthe-art hospital across from the farmhouse for the girls’ care.
Once the baby girls were moved, it was even harder for Oliva and Elzire to get time with them, as they lived in a sterile space sealed off from the world. And the parents were never allowed to be alone with them.
Months later, for no discernible reason, the premier of Canada proposed a bill to permanently strip them of custody and make the girls wards of the state. He argued it would protect them from being exploited, and would ensure that any money made would be held in a trust for the girls’ benefit.
The bill passed. The Dionne quintuplets would be raised primarily by Dr Dafoe and a constantly rotating team of nurses.
THE GIRLS BECAME EXHIBITS
Incredibly, the quintuplets’ newly appointed guardians turned around and did exactly what they were supposedly protecting the girls from.
First, they built a veritable baby zoo — an outdoor area where the girls would play twice a day, with a long observation hallway curved around it for thousands of daily spectators.
There were, of course, dolls, and paid photo shoots for magazines. The Dionne quintuplets also appeared in ads for dozens of products — ketchup, oats, Lifesavers candy, soap, typewriters, bread, ice cream, sanitised mattress covers.
THE MONEY POURED IN
All the money coming in was put into a trust fund meant for the girls. But the fund was regularly ransacked. It paid for every aspect of the Dionne hospital, right down to the water bill. It paid for the construction of public bathrooms for tourists. And the hotel dinners of visiting psychologists. “We were obliged to do so many things, so often, that in our head, we didn’t feel that we were able to say, ‘No, not this time, another time,’” Cecile said later.
The windows of the observation hallway were supposedly obscured so the girls couldn’t see all the strangers, but the sisters later said, “Of course we knew we were being watched.” They would ham it up for tourists, just as they had learnt to pose for the cameras.
THE FAMILY REUNITED ... BUT WAS IT HAPPY?
Oliva and Elzire Dionne never stopped advocating to get all of their children living together under one roof. When they finally succeeded in 1943, they also got a new roof — a 19-bedroom, yellow-brick mansion, paid for with the quintuplets’ trust fund, of course.
Despite the reunion, it was not a happy home. Years of separation had done its damage.
Decades later, three of them also claimed Oliva abused them. The other Dionne children denied this.
As the years passed, interest in the girls began to recede, but they were still forced to dress up in matching outfits for photo shoots in their teen years. And the media continued to pry.
Emilie also began to have seizures. Because of the stigma of the day against epilepsy, the family kept it secret, even as her seizures became more frequent and severe.
THE YOUNGEST LEFT THE FOLD
Marie, who had been born last and was at first the frailest, surprised everyone by being the first to leave the fold. At 19, she joined a strict order of nuns and moved into a convent. Emilie followed her into a different convent soon afterward.
Only two months later, Emilie died suddenly, likely due to complications from her seizure disorder. She was 20.
Even in their grief, the four surviving sisters were made to pose for press photos next to Emilie’s open casket.
In death, Emilie gave her sisters “a sort of release,” as Cecile put it. Public interest in the girls dried up, they moved away from their family and started their own lives in Montreal.
Yvonne and Cecile went to nursing school together, and Marie and Annette roomed together in college. Three of them eventually married, though none of the marriages lasted. Even as adults, the sisters found it difficult to be around anyone but each other.
In February 1970, Marie’s body was found in her bed next to several bottles of medication. A cause of death could never be determined.
After her death, the sisters became even more private.
NOW 85, TWO OF THE SISTERS ARE STILL LIVING
Cecile and Annette are the only two remaining of the five sisters. But Cecile’s adult son Bertrand Langlois, who helped them win their settlement, disappeared with his mother’s share of the money.
So, in a terrible irony, she is once again a ward of the state and lives in a state-run nursing home. They rarely speak with the media, and generally only to warn the public that what happened to them must never happen again.
Given how much more is known about child development now, could that even be possible? Sarah Miller, who has written a book on the sisters, isn’t sure.
“I don’t think we would necessarily have another baby zoo,” she said. But in the age of Instagram “kidfluencers,” “you could wind up kicking a different snowball down a similar hill.”
“We were obliged to do so many things, so often, that in our head, we didn’t feel that we were able to say, ‘No, not this time, another time. Of course, we knew we were watched.” Cecile Dionne | One of the quintuplets
For no discernible reason, the premier of Canada proposed a bill to permanently strip the girls’ parents of custody and make the girls wards of the state. He argued it would protect them.
I don’t think we would necessarily have another baby zoo. But in the age of Instagram ‘kidfluencers’ you could wind up kicking a different snowball down a similar hill.” Sarah Hill | Author of a book on the Dionne sisters