Nobody could have known, not even Elzire Dionne, that she was going to give birth to quintuplets.
What will I do with all them babies?
Elzire suspected she was carrying twins, but the possibility of quintuplets didnt cross her mind.
And why would it?
The Dionnes are the only identical quintuplets ever recorded and the first ever quintuplets known to survive infancy.
Some ridiculed the parents for creating a litter of humans.
Others provided monetary assistance.
One couple offered to buy the bed where the girls were born for a thousand dollars.
A hospital sent two incubators.
Elzire Dionne with her five girls shortly after their birth.
Oliva was desperate and needed the money, but he despaired.
He approached the village priest for guidance.
The priest not only advised Oliva to take the offer, but offered himself as his business manager.
Oliva regretted signing the deal almost immediately.
He tried to get out of the contract but the Chicago Fair promoters refused.
Inside the house, the girls were treated like princesses.
But Elzire and Oliva never felt welcome.
They were shadowed wherever they went, and they were never allowed to be alone with their babies.
Pretty soon, their nursery had became a veritable baby zoo.
The girls were taken care of by a staff consisting of three nurses, a housekeeper and two maids.
Three policemen guarded them at all times.
The entire property was surrounded by a seven-foot tall barbed wire fence.
Disquieting signs hung all around:
like Cooperate; Silence Is Requested.
No Photographs Allowed To Be Taken Of The Children.
The girls were raised with strict discipline.
They then said prayers and ate breakfast.
Dinner was served at precisely six o’clock.
Before bed, then went into the quiet playroom to say their evening prayers.
Oliva himself ran a souvenir shop opposite the nursery.
The girls also appeared in three Hollywood movies.
During this short period, Quintland was Ontario’s biggest tourist attraction, surpassing Niagara Falls.
But the reunion was not a happy one.
Wealth had transformed the family.
Elzire treated them harshly, screamed insults and hit them.
Their father started abusing them sexually.
They didnt treat us as children, Annette and Cecile toldThe New York Timesin 2017.
[We were] their servants, slaves.
It was not human.
Once they turned 18, the five girls left for school in Quebec and settled there.
Emilie died young, at the age of 20, when her untreated epilepsy gave her a lethal seizure.
Marie died in 1970 from a blood clot in her brain.
Yvonne died in 2001.
Annette lives in Montreal.
Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe with the quintuplets.
The Dionne quintuplets in 1943, a few weeks before their ninth birthday.
The Dionne quintuplets in 1952.
The last two remaining Dionne quintuplets, Cecile and Annette.
