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I ran across The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama (1977) in an obituary of the last of the Dionne quintuplets, Annette, who died Dec. 24, 2025 at age 91.
Pierre Berton (1920-2004), the author of The Dionne Years, interviewed
some 50 persons for this book, many with direct knowledge or relationships with
the Dionne quints. He furnishes notes but no bibliography. He wrote about
50 other books, plus many more for juveniles.
It’s a fast read.
On May 28, 1934 in a small village in
Ontario, midwives delivered the first of the quints followed by
After their births, a reporter called the doctor about every 20 minutes inquiring about the babies' health, but since no other quintuplets had lived longer than a few days, the doctor had little hope for their survival.
The house had no electricity, and the babies were kept warm near the oven. They were fed with an eye dropper every two hours and attended by three nurses, one who was always on duty.
Their total weight was 13 pounds, six ounces with the largest weighing 2.5
pounds and the smallest, Marie, 1.5 pounds.
None were longer than nine inches.
When Dr. Dafoe permitted a member of the press to see the infants wrapped in blankets, their father, Mr. Dionne, when he arrived home, threw the person out. Mr. Dionne had a reputation for using a pitchfork when it came to curiosity seekers.
Another time, after a reporter took the babies outside for some sunshine, a nurse exploded in a verbal tirade when she discovered them.
That the babies were born midway through the Great Depression (1929-1939) provided an pleasant escape for everyone (or, perhaps for those curiosity seekers, rather like our astronauts today).
Mothers donated breast milk. Various vendors supplied
their baby and medical needs.
With five older children, the Dionnes were hard up for
money, and their father and Dr. Dafoe agreed with promoters to permit
the babies to go on display at a Chicago event which their mother later rejected.
When the parents were criticized for trying to make money off their children, it was Dr. Dafoe and the Canadian government who profited.
The public treated Dr. Dafoe like royalty. In 1943
alone, the good doctor Dafoe pocketed $182,466 (equivalent to $3,328,991
in 2025).
Retailers paid thousands of dollars to have their products pictured with the quints.
To enable the many people who came to see them, a play area was constructed on the Dionnes' property ("Quintland,") where visitors could watch the children play through a one-way screen , but the children could hear the visitors and the screens were not totally opaque.
Curiosity seekers were admitted 100 at a time to watch or about 3,000 a day.
For several years the girls lived in a nursery built for them with round-the-clock care like at a hospital, under the strict supervision and care of Dr. Dafoe and specialized nurses, the doctor who grew to love the children, as did the nursing staff.
Dr. Dafoe kept them under a strict regimen and to
meet public expectations, had them dressed alike until they were five
years old.
On pages 125-126, the book says a March 1936 article in Cosmopolitan by the renowned Dr. Alfred Adler (one of the triumvirate with Freud and Jung) likened their hospital residency to "inmates of a model orphanage and a certain emotional starvation,” and in later life, the sisters recounted their growing-up years in much the same way, urging parents not to treat their children as showpieces as they had been raised.
Acting as their father, Dr. Dafoe prohibited much contact
between the children and their parents who were treated in the press and elsewhere as if they
were dumb, blind, and ignorant.
The parents did not attend the quints' first birthday extravaganza when press services, all three US radio networks and more were invited. Said their father: “We don’t consider it an honor to be invited by pure strangers to visit our own children.” (p.108)
Some of the celebrities who came to see them included Bette Davis, W. K. Kellogg, and Amelia Earhart and her husband five weeks before Ms. Earhart disappeared in the Pacific Ocean. (Most source say six weeks before she disappeared.)
The Quints grew up, some got married, joined a convent, starred
in three films, divorced, and in later years, realized little to nothing from
their famous births.
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