Annette Dionne

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Removal from family

At two months old, the Dionne quintuplets were removed from their parents' care after Oliva and Elzire Dionne signed a temporary two-year agreement placing the sisters under the guardianship of the Canadian Red Cross. Although intended to protect the quintuplets while a legal dispute was resolved, the agreement marked the beginning of their separation from their family for most of their childhood.

The agreement followed a dispute over a contract to exhibit the quintuplets at Chicago's Century of Progress exposition. Within days of the sisters' birth in May 1934, promoters approached their father, Oliva Dionne, seeking permission to display the babies. At the time, exhibiting premature infants in incubator shows at fairs and exhibitions was not uncommon. On the advice of their physician, Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, and the family priest, Father Daniel Routhier, Oliva initially agreed to the contract but attempted to cancel it a few days later, arguing that it was invalid because his wife, Elzire, had not signed it. The promoters disputed his claim.

In July 1934, the Dionnes agreed to place the quintuplets in the temporary care of the Canadian Red Cross. In return, the Red Cross assumed responsibility for all medical expenses, paid the nurses' wages, arranged for donated breast milk, supplied equipment, and oversaw the construction of a hospital and nursery built specifically for the sisters.

In February 1935, Oliva and Elzire travelled to Chicago, where they appeared on stage as the parents of the "world famous babies". Shortly afterwards, Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn argued that the trip demonstrated the need for stronger government intervention to protect the children from commercial interests. In March 1935, the Ontario legislature passed the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, making the sisters wards of the Crown until they reached age 18.

Oliva Dionne was appointed to the four-member Board of Guardians but rarely attended meetings, believing that his vote carried little weight against the other three guardians: Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, Judge Joseph Valin of North Bay, and Minister of Welfare David Croll. Meeting monthly, the board assumed control of the quintuplets' care and business affairs. Although the legislation was presented as a measure to protect the sisters from commercial exploitation, the provincial government soon developed the tourist attraction that became known as Quintland.

Quintland

The Dionne quintuplets spent much of their childhood at the centre of Quintland, a government-operated tourist attraction built around the Dafoe Nursery. Constructed through a Canadian Red Cross fundraising campaign, the nursery became the centrepiece of one of Canada's largest tourist attractions during the Great Depression. From 1935 until the sisters returned to their family in 1943, millions of people travelled to Northern Ontario to observe them.

When public visits first began, tourists viewed the quintuplets through a window of the Dafoe Nursery. Their caregivers soon concluded that this arrangement upset the girls, who became excited when visitors arrived and distressed when they left. Asking visitors to remain quiet proved ineffective, and the sisters were initially exhibited four times each day.

The public observatory opened on Canada Day in 1936, when the sisters were two years old. Visitors passed through a covered arcade surrounding the nursery's outdoor playground, where the girls were brought outside for scheduled public viewings. The playground formed part of the nursery compound, which was enclosed by a seven-foot (7 feet (2.1 m)) barbed-wire fence. Visitors were instructed to remain silent, not speak to the girls, continue moving to avoid congestion, and refrain from taking photographs. The sisters were not exhibited during poor weather. Although one-way screens were intended to prevent noise and distraction, they functioned more like frosted glass. The girls knew they were being watched because they could hear the screams and laughter of the crowds, even if they could not clearly see them. Only five people were permitted in a room with the quintuplets at one time, and anyone admitted was sprayed with disinfectant.

Approximately 3,000 people visited Quintland each day, and almost three million passed through the observation gallery between 1936 and 1943. Hundreds of automobiles arrived daily, and ample parking was provided for visitors. At its height, Quintland surpassed the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to become Ontario's largest tourist attraction and was rivalled in North America only by Radio City Music Hall in New York City, Mount Vernon in Virginia, and Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.

Visitors included actors Clark Gable, James Stewart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, and Mae West, as well as aviator Amelia Earhart, who visited nearby Callander, Ontario, six weeks before her disappearance in 1937.

The attraction generated more than $50 million in tourist revenue for Ontario. Across the road from the Dafoe Nursery, the sisters' father, Oliva Dionne, operated souvenir shops serving the steady stream of tourists who came to see his daughters.

More than 30 years later, the surviving sisters reflected on their childhood at Quintland in their autobiography We Were Five, writing, "We dwelt at the center of a circus. A carnival set in the middle of nowhere." In a 2017 interview, Cécile Dionne later said of the daily public exhibitions, "It wasn't good for the children to be like that, to be shown like that, playing naturally and knowing that other people were looking. It was sort of theft from us."

Merchandise and souvenirs

As Quintland developed into one of Canada's most popular tourist attractions during the late 1930s, a thriving souvenir industry grew up around the quintuplets. Opposite the Dafoe Nursery, their father, Oliva Dionne, operated both a souvenir shop and a woollen store that served the thousands of tourists who travelled to Corbeil, Ontario, each year.

By the late 1930s, shops in Quintland sold a wide variety of merchandise bearing the sisters' names or likenesses, including autographs, framed photographs, postcards, books, dolls, candy bars, handkerchiefs, and household items such as spoons, cups, plates, and plaques.

Among the most unusual souvenirs were small stones collected from the area and promoted as possessing magical fertility powers. The stones were offered free of charge in bins that reportedly had to be refilled almost every day because so many people took them home.

During the same period, some women hoping to conceive also sought to touch the quintuplets' mother, Elzire Dionne, believing that contact with her would improve their chances of becoming pregnant. Two of the midwives who had assisted at the quintuplets' birth, Madame LeGros and Madame Lebel, later worked in souvenir shops serving Quintland tourists.

Many of these souvenirs have survived and are now preserved in museums and private collections. In 2019, California collector Carol Fraser donated Dionne memorabilia valued at approximately US$20,000 to the Dionne Quints Home Museum in North Bay, Ontario. Over many years, Fraser and her sisters assembled eight sets of dolls, photographs, spoons, bowls, handkerchiefs, doll furniture, and other artifacts. Fraser recalled receiving two Dionne souvenir handkerchiefs as a Christmas gift during her childhood, saying, "I remember, one Christmas, my mother gave me two hankies, and she said she paid more for those than she had ever paid for a dress." Explaining why she donated the material, Fraser said, "I think the Dionne collection should go home."

Publications and media

Beginning in 1936, when the quintuplets were 2 years old, they appeared in three Hollywood feature films produced by 20th Century Fox: The Country Doctor (1936), Reunion (1936), and Five of a Kind (1938). In all three films, they portrayed the fictional "Wyatt quintuplets", while actor Jean Hersholt portrayed Dr. John Luke, a character based on Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe. In the first two films, the quintuplets' scenes were filmed at Quintland and largely consisted of them playing and interacting with one another rather than acting. Both films focused primarily on the fictional physician who cared for the Wyatt family rather than on the quintuplets themselves.The quintuplets also appeared in numerous newsreels. In 1939, at age 5, they starred in the short documentary Five Times Five, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Two-reel) at the 12th Academy Awards. Three years later, in 1942, at age 8, they appeared in one of James A. Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks, Land of the Quintuplets, filmed shortly before they were returned to their parents' custody.

After reaching adulthood, the four surviving sisters, Annette Dionne, Cécile Dionne, Marie Dionne and Yvonne Dionne, collaborated with author James Brough on the autobiography We Were Five, published in 1965.

Interest in the quintuplets continued in later decades. In 1977, Canadian historian Pierre Berton published The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama. The following year he narrated a National Film Board of Canada documentary about the sisters. In 1986, John Nihmey and Stuart Foxman published the novel Time of Their Lives—The Dionne Tragedy, which was adapted into the 1994 CBC and CBS miniseries Million Dollar Babies.

More than 60 years after becoming internationally known, the three surviving sisters, Annette Dionne, Cécile Dionne and Yvonne Dionne, published an open letter in 1997 to the parents of the McCaughey septuplets, warning against allowing excessive publicity for their children.

The following year, in 1998, Cécile Dionne, Annette Dionne and Yvonne Dionne participated in the hour-long documentary Full Circle: The Untold Story of the Dionne Quintuplets, written and directed by Maya Gallus and broadcast on the CBC documentary series Life & Times.

Family struggles

When the family was reunited, many struggles followed. The quintuplets felt distanced from their siblings. They struggled to communicate as the family spoke French while the quintuplets were brought up in English under Dr. Dafoe.

Once Oliva received custody, he wanted attention. He made police accompany his vehicle as he took the quintuplets out, constantly drawing attention to them and himself.

While the parents claimed that they wished to integrate the quintuplets into the family, the sisters frequently travelled to perform at various functions and still dressed identically. According to the accounts of the surviving sisters, the parents often treated them at home as a five-part unit and frequently lectured them about the trouble they had caused the family by existing. They claimed physical abuse at the hands of their mother. They were unaware for many years that the lavish house, the expensive food, and the series of cars the family enjoyed were paid for with money they themselves had earned, but they were aware that their upbringing meant they would never feel truly part of the large Dionne family and called their time in the Big House, "the saddest home we ever knew".

In particular, Oliva Dionne was resentful and suspicious of outsiders as a result of his having lost custody of the girls. In 1995, the three surviving sisters alleged that their father had sexually abused them during their teenage years. He bought liniment claiming it would help with Yvonne's chest cold. As a 13-year-old she felt pressured to undress in front of her father. Her father rubbed the liniment on her neck, sternum, shoulders, and ribs. Then, he turned to Émilie and told her he needed to apply the liniment on her too. The quintuplets feared going for car rides with their father and felt the need to dress extra conservatively on these rides because of him. Annette wore turtlenecks to prevent her father from violating her. During car rides the girls were squished up front with their father as the back seats were in for repair. He allegedly French kissed them and put his fingers down their blouses.

In popular culture

In the short story "Mandarin Jade", Raymond Chandler wrote in Chapter 3 of "an advertising calendar showing the Dionne quintuplets rolling around on a sky-blue floor". In chapter 11 of his 1939 novel The Big Sleep, Chandler described "an advertising calendar showing the Quints rolling around on a sky-blue floor, in pink dresses, with seal-brown hair and sharp black eyes as large as mammoth prunes".

Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny said the fictional Ouellet quintuplets in her book How The Light Gets In "were certainly inspired by the Dionne girls".

Three of the Dionne quintuplets (Marie, Annette, Yvonne) were referenced by Curly Howard in the Three Stooges short "False Alarms", saying, "Look at the little baby hoses, quintuplets!") released on August 16, 1936.

In Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise (1939), towards the end of the film, Moe Howard tells Curly to wish for quintuplets and Curly responds, "we'll honeymoon in Canada" with their new found loves to make the wish come true.

The Buster Keaton short "Ditto" (1937) ends with scenes set in Canada, fifteen years into the future. The final sight gag is a visual reference to the Dionne quintuplets, who are first-name-checked on the back of camp chairs in which five supposedly identical women are sitting.

In the 1937 British comedy film Oh, Mr Porter!, Will Hay's character "Porter" puns on "Murphy" telling him his wife's had quinsy (a complication of tonsillitis), replying "What, like that woman in Canada?"

Disney: Pluto's Quin-Puplets (1937) – the first animated short officially starring Pluto – was cleverly created in the wake of the 1930s craze for the quintuplets: Pluto and Fifi are seen as "Mr. And Mrs. Pluto", the parents of five mischievous mini-Plutos.

In the final scene of the 1940 film River's End, Cheeta, newly married to Andy Dijon, questions her choice of husband, complaining among other things that French Canadians do not make good papas. Her enthusiasm for the union is renewed when Andy points out that the only man in the world who is papa to five babies at the same time is French Canadian.

In the 1944 film The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, an American girl has six boys. The news makes headlines around the world. A newspaper headline is shown: "Canada Protests: 'Possible But Not Probable.' Says Premier".

In the 1945 film Duffy's Tavern, Archie, played by Ed Gardner, asks another character (Miss Duffy), "what else did you see while you were up there [in Canada], did you see the, uh, quintuplets?!"

In the 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon Baby Bottleneck, Daffy Duck is shown taking phone calls from a handful of celebrity fathers including Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby and Oliva Dionne (who is quickly dismissed by Daffy with a curt "Mr. Dionne, puh-lease!").

Stephen Sondheim referenced the quintuplets in his song "I'm Still Here" from the musical Follies with the line "I got through Abie's Irish Rose, five Dionne babies, Major Bowes..."

A 1978 documentary Dionne Quintuplets, narrated by Pierre Berton, included news footage and interviews.

The 1994 TV miniseries Million Dollar Babies was based on the novel Time of Their Lives—The Dionne Tragedy.

The publicity around the birth and display of the quintuplets inspired the 1999 episode of The Simpsons, "Eight Misbehavin'".

The 2000 Disney Channel original move “Quints” focuses on the dangers of the limelight for a set of quintuplets.

The Season 4 Episode of South Park, Quintuplets 2000, is partial based on the Dionne Quinntuplets.

In 2018, the birth of the quintuplets was named a National Historic Event.

The fourth episode of the Amazon television series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is called "The Disappointment of the Dionne Quintuplets".

E. L. Doctorow references the quintuplets in his novel World's Fair (1985) in a chapter 2 passage: "I don't trust that doctor", she said of the physician attending the Dionne quintuplets. "He likes the limelight too much."

Annette Dionne

Annette Dionne

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Family

Pregnancy and delivery

The newborn quintuplets

Public reception and support

Removal from family

Dafoe Nursery

Quintland

Merchandise and souvenirs

Product promotion

Publications and media

Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe

Return to family

Family struggles

Trust fund and financial exploitation

Adult years

Museums

In popular culture

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