Shame Ontario, shame! Dionne quins' zoo

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 :(

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. 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.

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.