The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets

by Sarah Miller

  Thérèse and Rose-Marie mug for a tourist’s camera. (The woman on the porch may be Oliva’s sister Alma.)

  Collection of the author

  Auntie Legros’s souvenir and refreshment pavilion, complete with rooftop observation deck, in the summer of 1935.

  Collection of the author

  Tourists make a mad dash toward the hospital’s inner fence line in hopes of securing an unobstructed view of the babies on the verandah.

  Collection of the author

  Yvonne waves to quintuplet fans from Nurse Leroux’s arms, September 1935.

  Collection of the author

  An unusually subdued Annette and Nurse Leroux on the verandah, September 1935.

  Collection of the author

  Nurse Cécile Lamoureux with Cécile, September 1935.

  Collection of the author

  Nurse Lamoureux and Émilie, September 1935.

  Collection of the author

  Nurse Leroux coaxes Marie to greet the public, September 1935.

  Collection of the author

  The babies’ twice-daily view of the crowd from the verandah.

  Collection of the author

  Marie, Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, and Émilie taking the air on the hospital verandah, September 1935.

  Collection of the author

  The observatory in its final stages of construction, late June 1936.

  Collection of the author

  The observatory playground, with its tricycle track, wading pool, and sand pit.

  In bright sunlight, the white mesh screens almost entirely obscure the interior of the observation gallery.

  Collection of the author

  Panorama of Quintland, circa 1936. Oliva Dionne’s souvenir pavilion is on the left, with the Dionne farmhouse just down the road; the staff house is at center; and the hospital and observatory are on the right.

  Collection of the author

  Madame Lebel and Auntie Legros selling souvenirs, August 1936. Pennants, figurines, plates, and postcards are all visible for sale. Madame Lebel is holding a copy of the midwives’ memoir, Administering Angels of the Dionne Quintuplets.

  Courtesy of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  A woman selects a “fertility stone” from the bins outside the hospital fence.

  Collection of the author

  The sight that thousands of tourists traveled hundreds of miles to see: Émilie, Marie, Cécile, Yvonne, and Annette romping in their wading pool.

  Collection of the author

  Marie, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Yvonne stacking their building blocks in the playground, 1936. (Tourists complained that the sunbonnets blocked their view of the children they had come so far to see.)

  Collection of the author

  Actors Rochelle Hudson, Jean Hersholt, and Dorothy Peterson join their pint-sized costars in the playground during the 1936 filming of Reunion. (Individual panes are faintly visible in the observatory windows, despite the wire mesh.)

  Collection of the author

  Aerial view of Quintland, winter 1938. The observatory and hospital occupy the center, with the staff house perched on the hill to the right. Directly across from the staff house sits the Dionne farm. Oliva Dionne’s two souvenir pavilions face the hospital, and the clock tower pavilion is just visible at far left.

  Collection of the author

  The peak of Quintmania. By 1939 at least four pavilions were operating, two of them run by Oliva Dionne.

  Image no. x-09293, courtesy of Canada Science and Technology Museum

  Tourists lining up to enter the observatory for the three o’clock showing of the Dionne Quintuplets.

  Image no. x-09295, courtesy of Canada Science and Technology Museum

  A snapshot of Oliva Dionne’s large souvenir and refreshment pavilion in 1940.

  Collection of the author

  Across the street from the Quintland hubbub, Pauline, Rose-Marie, Daniel, Thérèse, and Ernest admire their new baby brother, Oliva Jr., born just days after the opening of the observatory in July 1936.

  Collection of the author

  The Dionnes with their staff in 1936: Annette and Nurse Depue, Yvonne and Nurse Demar, Cécile and Nurse O’Shaughnessy, Émilie and Nurse Leroux, Marie and Nurse Noël.

  Collection of the author

  Nurse Noël watches Cécile, Émilie, Marie, Yvonne, and Annette playing by the nursery fence, September 1936.

  Collection of the author

  Marie, Annette, and Émilie play barber with Dr. Dafoe while Yvonne and Cécile distract him with picture books, April 1937.

  Collection of the author

  Three-year-old Cécile, Yvonne, Émilie, Marie, and Annette wreak havoc on the nursery’s doll corner.

  Collection of the author

  The world’s most famous five sisters—Annette, Yvonne, Cécile, Marie, and Émilie—in July 1937.

  Collection of the author

  Émilie, Annette, Marie, Cécile, and Yvonne tasting ice cream for the first time—on their fourth birthday.

  Courtesy of Archives of Ontario, Fred Davis and Yvonne Leroux fonds, C-9-6-1

  Four-year-old Annette, Yvonne, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie in a Christmas pose, likely staged weeks or months before the holiday.

  Collection of the author

  20th Century Fox film crews swarm around the children during the 1938 filming of Five of a Kind.

  Courtesy of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  Émilie, Annette, Marie, Cécile, and Yvonne dressing for the grand finale of Five of a Kind.

  Courtesy of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  Gazing through the train windows at the royal spectacle in Toronto, May 1939.

  Collection of the author

  Annette, Émilie, Yvonne, Marie, and Cécile in the dresses they wore to meet King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939.

  Courtesy of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  Yvonne, Cécile, Annette, Marie, and Émilie on the train with their favorite playthings, en route to Corbeil after meeting the king and queen.

  Collection of the author

  Cécile, Marie, Annette, Émilie, and Yvonne, age six.

  Collection of the author

  Photographed with their daughters for the first time in six years, Oliva and Elzire revel in a rare moment of affection with Marie, Yvonne, Émilie, Annette, and Cécile.

  Courtesy of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  While their sisters live behind barbed wire, Pauline, Daniel, Thérèse, and Ernest enjoy an outing to the family cottage on Trout Lake with their father in 1941.

  Collection of the author

  No one who received one of Dr. Dafoe’s custom-made Christmas cards, like this one from the early 1940s, would have guessed he had a son of his own.

  Courtesy of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  The “Big House,” captured by a tourist in the mid-1940s.

  Collection of the author

  Yvonne, Cécile, Émilie, Marie, and Annette posing in the living room of the Big House around age twelve.

  Collection of the author

  The complete Dionne family in 1946. Rear: Yvonne, Pauline, Cécile, Rose-Marie, Émilie, Daniel, Thérèse, and Ernest. Center: Annette, Elzire, Marie, and Oliva with baby Claude.

  Front: Oliva Jr. and Victor.

  Collection of the author

  Cécile crowns North Bay’s winter carnival queen in February 1946
with Émilie, Yvonne, Annette, and Marie looking on.

  Collection of the author

  Cécile, Marie, Yvonne, Émilie, and Annette as teenagers, 1947.

  Collection of the author

  Émilie, Annette, Marie, Yvonne, and Cécile at Villa Notre Dame in the mid-1940s.

  Courtsey of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  Three of the Dionne sisters—likely Yvonne (second from left), Cécile (center), and Émilie (far right, looking down)—studying with classmates at Villa Notre Dame.

  Collection of the author

  Annette, Marie, Cécile, Yvonne, and Émilie on the Staten Island Ferry during their 1950 tour of New York City.

  Collection of the author

  Everywhere the Dionnes turned, photographers blocked their view of New York City.

  Collection of the author

  Annette, Cécile, Marie, Émilie, and Yvonne upon graduating from Villa Notre Dame on their eighteenth birthday in 1952.

  Collection of the author

  Yvonne, the first of the Dionnes to live apart from her sisters, in 1952.

  Collection of the author

  Émilie Dionne, as she appeared shortly before entering L’Accueil Gai.

  Collection of the author

  All smiles for the camera, following the Christmas scandal of 1955. Elzire embraces Yvonne while Annette and Cécile sit beside Oliva.

  Collection of the author

  Marie at the opening of her flower shop, Salon Émilie, on Mother’s Day 1956.

  Collection of the author

  Cécile and Philippe on their wedding day, November 23, 1957.

  Collection of the author

  Yvonne and Annette congratulate Cécile on the birth of her first son, Claude, in 1958.

  Collection of the author

  Gerry helps little Jean-François present Annette with ballet tickets for her twenty-fifth birthday in 1959.

  Collection of the author

  Elzire and Oliva Dionne in September 1979.

  This was one of their last photographs together before Oliva’s death.

  Courtesy of Callander Bay Heritage Museum

  Sisters triumphant: Annette, Cécile, and Yvonne Dionne in 1998.

  Courtesy of the Getty Collection

  Cécile and Annette Dionne, October 2016

  Archives/Journal de Montreal

  Yvonne Dionne died of cancer on June 24, 2001. Her sisters were at her side, just as they had always been. Annette and Cécile have requested that donations in Yvonne’s memory be made to Kids Help Phone: kidshelpphone.ca.

  * * *

  —

  In May of 1998, Cécile Dionne moved into a duplex her son Bertrand bought with a portion of his 15 percent share of the $4 million settlement. “I knew she would never feel secure enough to buy one for herself,” he said of the purchase. They lived side by side until 2006, when Bertrand sold the house and moved his mother into a posh assisted-living facility. Six years later, Cécile’s bank account was empty and Bertrand was gone. She has not heard from him since. In a cruel echo of her childhood, Cécile Dionne became a ward of the government, with no control over any aspect of her life. At first, all she could think of was how to escape the senior residence she was assigned to, but gradually she made an effort to become acquainted with the people around her in order to build a second family. “At my age it’s difficult,” she says. “But I clench my fists and I keep my head high.” Once again, the media came to her rescue: reporter Marian Scott of the Montreal Gazette took up Cécile’s cause and has been working to overturn the court’s ruling and move her to a better place.

  * * *

  —

  As of 2018, Annette lives independently in a condominium outside Montreal, where she occupies herself with her piano and her computer. Although she is unable to visit her sister as often as she’d like, Annette and Cécile are constantly in touch. “When I realize that I start to miss her, I pick up the phone,” Annette explains. That happens at least three times a day, for the comfort they bring to each other remains a vital part of their lives. “I thank God often to have Cécile,” Annette says.

  * * *

  —

  Of Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie’s eight siblings, two remain as of August 2018: Thérèse and Pauline. The Province of Ontario has yet to offer them an apology for the devastation it caused to the members of the Dionne family who lived outside the hospital gates.

  I have not invented any of the dialogue in this book. Everything rendered in quotation marks can be traced to diaries, correspondence, books, newspapers, magazines, newsreels, or film documentaries. Nevertheless, a note of caution is called for. I have no doubt that some of the lengthier conversations in these sources are composites or re-creations rather than precise word-for-word recollections. In several cases, I’ve abridged these conversations, snipping out what smacked of melodrama or stretched the limits of credulity where the speaker’s memory was concerned.

  It’s also wise to keep in mind that in the race to capture public opinion, nearly everyone involved in the Dionne saga succumbed to the temptation to present an exaggerated picture of their own virtue and/or a distorted view of their opponents’ flaws. I have made every effort to sift through the layers of boasts and accusations to present dialogue that comes as near the truth as possible, but in some instances, emotions ran too high and wounds too deep. Words were often spoken in pain or anger—on both sides of the Dionne/Dafoe divide.

  In instances where the words themselves are not entirely verifiable, I believe a valuable measure of truth can still be found in the underlying emotion they convey. Lillian Barker, for example, is emphatically not someone to rely on for pinpoint accuracy, yet few other journalists managed to express the depth of Oliva and Elzire Dionne’s yearning for sympathy and respect. On the other side of the fence—quite literally—Nurse de Kiriline’s early accounts of her time at the Dafoe Hospital tended to mold the facts in Dr. Dafoe’s favor, thus demonstrating her genuine devotion to him and to the ideals of scientific child care. In short, when I cannot be certain that the dialogue is objectively truthful, I believe that it conveys what the speaker most fervently wished to be heard.

  ARCHIVES

  Leroux-Davis fonds, Archives of Ontario, York University.

  Pierre Berton fonds, McMaster University.

  W. E. Blatz Collection, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto.

  BOOKS

  Barker, Lillian. The Dionne Legend: Quintuplets in Captivity. New York: Doubleday, 1951.

  Barker, Lillian. The Quints Have a Family. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1941.

  Berton, Pierre. The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1977.

  Blatz, William. The Five Sisters: A Study in Child Psychology. London, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1939. (Note: pagination of this British edition differs from the American edition published by William Morrow in 1938.)

  Blatz, William, et al. Collected Studies on the Dionne Quintuplets. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1937.

  Brough, James, with Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Yvonne Dionne. We Were Five: The Dionne Quintuplets’ Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963.

  Corriveau, M. Louise. Quints to Queens. New York: Vantage Press, 1976.

  de Kiriline, Louise. The Quintuplets’ First Year: The Survival of the Famous Five Dionne Babies and Its Significance for All Mothers. Toronto: Macmillan, 1936.

  De Kruif, Paul, and Rhea De Kruif. Why Keep Them Alive? New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1936.

  Gervais, Gaétan. Les Jumelles Dionne et l’Ontario Français (1934–1944). Sudbury, Ontario: Prise de Parole, 2000.

  Hunt, Frazier. T
he Little Doc: The Story of Allan Roy Dafoe, Physician to the Quintuplets. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1939.

  Legros, Hector, and R. P. Joyal. “Memoire Sur les Parents et les Jumelles Dionne.” In North-Bay et les Jumelles Dionne. Sudbury, Ontario: La Société Historique de Nouvel-Ontario Collège du Sacré-Coeur, 1950.

  Legros, Madame, and Madame Lebel. Administering Angels of the Dionne Quintuplets: A True Story of the Birth of the Dionne Quintuplets. North Bay, Ont.: Northern Pub. Co., 1936.