Oliva and Elzire Dionne married in Sept 1925, a French-Canadian farming family with six children born BEFORE the quins. They also had three sons AFTER the quins. Born in 1934, the 5 premature babies were delivered by country Dr Allan Dafoe who quickly informed the local newspaper editor; he sent a reporter and photographer to the farm. Soon Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie and Marie were removed from the warm butcher’s basket, to pose on mum’s bed.
Quins with Dr Dafoe, 1940
Wiki
At first, media attention on the girls was helpful. Chicago and Toronto journalists brought water-heated incubators because the farmhouse lacked electricity. The Red Cross provided round-the-clock nurses. Ordinary mothers donated their breast milk to the quins and were compensated.
Meanwhile Oliva Dionne worried about how he would pay for medical care and all the other expenses of 5 more babies. He went to his priest for guidance on whether he should accept offers to publicly display the girls for money. The priest offered to be his business manager.
Dr Dafoe was responsible for the quins, with a rotating team of nurses, orchestrating the profiteering that surrounded them. Oliva signed a contract to display the quins at the Chicago World’s Fair for 23% of profits. A day later, Oliva changed his mind and cancelled the contract, but too late; the Chicago promoters refused.
Meanwhile Ontario Attorney General’s office proposed a solution to the parents: sign over custody of the girls to Red Cross for 2 years. Red Cross would build facilities opposite the farmhouse, for the girls’ care.
Months later the Premier proposed a bill to permanently make the girls state wards, thus ensuring that all moneys would be held in a Trust for the girls’ benefit. The parents, often depicted as ignorant peasants, publicly begged for the chance to be good parents. Yet Ontario passed the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act 1935 anyhow! Shame Ontario :(
Tourists filed past Dafoe Hospital observation pavilion,
LIFE
Meanwhile Dafoe started building Dafoe Hospital and Nursery across from Dionnes’ farmhouse, for the quins and nurses, and funded by the Red Cross. They moved in, then a space was created outside the nursery and indoor playground. Visitors filed under the covered arcade to observe the quins behind one-way screens, installed to prevent noise and distraction, just like a zoo. The quins were also brought out to the playground 2-3 times a day for the crowd’s pleasure, surrounded by a 2.13 m barbed-wire fence.
Meanwhile Dafoe started building Dafoe Hospital and Nursery across from Dionnes’ farmhouse, for the quins and nurses, and funded by the Red Cross. They moved in, then a space was created outside the nursery and indoor playground. Visitors filed under the covered arcade to observe the quins behind one-way screens, installed to prevent noise and distraction, just like a zoo. The quins were also brought out to the playground 2-3 times a day for the crowd’s pleasure, surrounded by a 2.13 m barbed-wire fence.
theriaults
Shops specialising in quins merchandise, 1940.
LIFE
Opening Canada Day 1936, c3,000 people visited the Observation Gallery daily! Infertile women touched Oliva Dionne, hoping he’d help them conceive. Quinland Theme Park had restaurants, camp grounds and recreational facilities. Past the observation hallway stood hot dog stands and souvenir shops, one run by the midwives who helped deliver the girls. A large souvenir stand was run by Oliva, supervising his 25 workers, but rarely seeing his daughters. Ontario even raised its petrol tax as visitors drove in.
The quins brought $500 million to the struggling Ontario province and were popular everywhere. Hollywood stars visited, notably Clark Gable, James Stewart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Mae West and Amelia Earhart. 3 Hollywood quin films were produced, making millions of dollars for the Trust and for Ontario’s provincial government. Alas the fund was constantly plundered, paying for every hospital cost.
Clearly the Board of Guardians did exactly what they were supposedly protecting the girls from, exploitation. In 9 years, the girls left only for a couple promotional tours. Dr Dafoe wrote a book, pamphlets and had sponsored radio broadcasts to help very appreciative new mothers. The quins also appeared in ads for Lysol, ice cream, Heinz tomato-sauce, Quaker oats, Lifesavers, Palmolive soap, typewriters and bread, publicised with the sisters’ and Dr Dafoe’s images. Eventually Dafoe took major financial advantage of his fame and was removed from the Board of Guardians.
Oliva and Elzire Dionne still tried to get the quins home. And after a prolonged legal battle, they succeeded in 1943. They also got a new 2-storey, 19-bedroom mansion, paid for with the quins’ Trust fund! Clearly it was not a happy home; Elzire treated them harshly, the quins were shunned by their siblings and 3 of the girls were sexually abused by dad.
Marie was the first to leave home at 19, joining an order of nuns and moved into a convent. Émilie began to have seizures but soon followed Marie. Tragically in 1954 Émilie died suddenly, at 20. The surviving sisters started their own lives in Montreal. Yvonne and Cécile went to nursing school, and Marie and Annette lived together in college. 3 of them did marry, but even as adults, the sisters found social relationships difficult. In Feb 1970, Marie’s body was found next to bottles of medication. She’d recently separated from her husband, was depressed and put her children in foster care. Oliva passed away in 1979, and Elzire in 1986.
Yvonne, Annette and Cécile struggled to cope financially by the 1990s. Cécile’s adult son Bertrand Langlois investigated and discovered how their account had been plundered. He began a public-relations campaign to shame the government into giving the women their funds. The sisters eventually accepted a $4 million settlement; the Premier even visited them and apologised on his government’s behalf.
Annette, Cecile and Yvonne moved to a Montreal flat where Yvonne died in 2001. But the son who helped Cécile and Annette win their settlement disappeared with Cécile’s Trust money. In a terrible irony, the sisters were once again wards of the state, living in a state-run nursing home.
The original family homestead was moved and converted into the Dionne Quintuplets Museum North Bay, with many artefacts from the early decades. Many thanks to Life.
Yvonne, Annette and Cécile struggled to cope financially by the 1990s. Cécile’s adult son Bertrand Langlois investigated and discovered how their account had been plundered. He began a public-relations campaign to shame the government into giving the women their funds. The sisters eventually accepted a $4 million settlement; the Premier even visited them and apologised on his government’s behalf.
Annette, Cecile and Yvonne moved to a Montreal flat where Yvonne died in 2001. But the son who helped Cécile and Annette win their settlement disappeared with Cécile’s Trust money. In a terrible irony, the sisters were once again wards of the state, living in a state-run nursing home.
The original family homestead was moved and converted into the Dionne Quintuplets Museum North Bay, with many artefacts from the early decades. Many thanks to Life.
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17 comments:
Hello Hels, As early as the 1930's, the Dionne Quintuplets were a byword for crass exploitation, even as they were admired. It's curious how the situation was so catastrophically bungled from beginning to end. The quintuplets were unusual and cute, and there was much legitimate curiosity around them. It wasn't like displaying Siamese twins or similar freaks, which anyway would have been the norm back then. But what could have been a win-win situation was destroyed by greed and inconsideration, incidentally the same fate as many child actors of that era and even more recently.
--Jim
p.s. I suppose this isn't the place to admit it, but I have a framed photograph of the Dionne Quints.
I our living memory, what a sad story of shocking exploitation, with government involvement. I wonder how some people sleep at night.
I've heard a bit about the Dionne quints but I didn't know everything you wrote about. Holy cow, it was terrible for them, wasn't it? What a sad story and a sad life they each had. And going home to their parents didn't seem to be any better either.
The nastiest aspect was the Dionne Guardianship Act which targetted a specific family and removed their children. Do any of your legally experienced readers know if that trick can be repeated now, in Canada or elsewhere?
Parnassus
it is perfectly alright to keep a photo and articles about something you are interested in. My family had a photo of The Russian Imperial Family before they were executed in 1918. We were not royalist, but the Russian Revolution was such a significant event, everyone needed to know it all. Especially about their five children.
The Dionne girls were amazing, and so rare that it was natural that the entire country would be curious. If I had been around then, I would have sent the Dionnes blankets, clothes and nappies.
Andrew
because apparently no set of quins had survived to adulthood before the Dionnes, it seemed that everybody saw the chance to make a money quickly - the parents, their priest, the newspaper journalists, Dr Dafoe, the provincial government and the commercial outlets at Quinland Theme Park. I have no idea what the goal of the Hollywood stars was! Financial exploitation or fame?
Everyone was considered except the 5 girls :(
Erika
for 9 years the babies saw NO-ONE but the doctor, rotating nurses and the other quins. Even if they learned to read in the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery, how could they understand how to relate to other people, once they were finally returned to their biological family? I thought it was strange that Marie and Émilie would want to become nuns, but now it sounds a whole lot less challenging than the outside world.
Deb
Good question. I must ask my lawyer friends tomorrow.
But perhaps that Guardianship Act was illegal, even in 1934. Decades later the surviving Dionne quints sued the Ontario government for separating them from their family and putting them on display as children, receiving a $4-million settlement from the provincial government. Or was that just a pity-offer from the government?
Boa tarde de domingo e bom início de semana.
Através do seu maravilhoso trabalho, aprendo sobre temas que eu nunca ouvi falar. Parabéns pelo seu maravilhoso trabalho e dedicação.
Luiz Gomes.
Hi Hels,
Yes, of course we all at that time were aware of the existence of the Dionne quintuplets, but not of all the details of the way they were handled by parents and government. I remember, though, my mother saying that it was a shame they were put on display like that.
We must not forget however that the reason we remember them is that they were quintuplets, not because of the way they were exploited. And I would submit that there are lots of cases of exploitation of children by government, church, and other institutions and individuals..
including parents... which never get reported. We were also unaware until recently of the mistreatment of indigenous children by the Catholic Church. And while you may rightly call shame on Ontario, I do not believe that this situation is limited to any state, country or institution. It is a bad side of human nature, using any means to make money, including exploitation of the powerless. We can only help by condemning it when we see it happening, as no doubt it is at this very moment, not far from where we are, wherever we may be.
Luiz
Good on you for reading this post. All I knew about the quins' story was what was published in Australian women's magazines from the 1950s eg https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/4885184? The family looked blissfully happy. The rest I learned only decades later when working alongside Children's Protection Society.
Michael
thanks for a thoughtful response. Agreed that there were/are many cases of exploitation of children by the parents, church and schools which may or may not have been reported. There is a case STILL going on here in Melbourne where a principal in a religious school was charged with raping teenage students in the years before 2006.
My question is not whether adults exploit or damage young children, but what happens when the community/authorities do not see the exploitation as dangerous and illegal? Removing new borns from their parents' guardianship can only be done when the parental home is carefully inspected, the parental behaviours are well documented and the courts have ruled. There MIGHT have been good reason to remove the quins... we will never know.
This sad story reminds me of the case of the Three Identical Strangers, three identical Jewish triplets, separated at birth and kept secret from each other by an irresponsible adoption agency. It's a similar tragic tale.😒
CLICK HERE for Bazza’s willingly winsome Blog ‘To Discover Ice’
bazza
Thank you!!! I forgot all about this outrageous case. I knew the unpleasant details of the American triplets' case long before than I had ever heard the unpleasant details of the Canadian Dionne quins. Despite Louise Wise Service saying that adopting triplets together would be impossible, none of the adoptive parents had ever been asked if they would take more than one child. In fact the psychologists specifically split up identical triplets, placing them in different home environments, in order to "study" their lives.
The triplets did not know was that they had been the subjects of a long-term study analysing the Nature Vs Nurture question. Partially government-funded, the relevant grant application was called a "Longitudinal Study on Monozygotic Twins Reared Apart". It was a deliberate attempt by scientists and doctors to ensure the 3 boys never knew they had identical brothers :( Some scientists make me sick :(
https://melbourneblogger.blogspot.com/2018/11/three-identical-strangers-film-review.html
Well anyone who claims that the market should just be let rip should read this sad tale . How totally appalling .The good old days NOT
mem
I never know whether to think the early 20th century were the Good Old Days when history was inspired by honourable motives eg socialism, universal suffrage, mandatory education for all children, development of modern medicine etc. OR days of ignorance and exploitation that we later learned from.
That new born babies could be taken from their parents and put into a "zoo", without any evidence of danger from the parents, suggests even sophisticated democracies like Canada had a lot to learn about protecting children from exploitation.
Hello Hels,
I just came across this article by the humorist Robert Benchley (my favorite author!) which mentions the Dionne quintuplets, and is about the incidence of multiple births. The book it was in was published in 1936, and since it is very short, I am appending it to this email.
Although it is easy to see the (passé) humor of the Frank Tinney joke, if Tinney could have come to Taiwan and seen the Chinese babies here, the prospect of getting his own would not have been so disconcerting. After reading your article on the Dionnes, Benchley's conclusion makes a lot of sense!
I hope that you enjoy the article, and that all is well there. Take care, Jim
See "The Rule of 87" http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700431h.html#chap66
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