The Quintland Sisters

by Shelley Wood

  One does not envy Dr. Dafoe—or anyone else connected with the case—his responsibility. The first objective must be to keep them alive, but close to that is the desire to make their lives as happy and normal as possible. If they are made a sideshow to interest and amuse the public something precious is sacrificed. If they are allowed to become five individuals, instead of a mass movement known as the Dionne Quintuplets, there may be hope that other members of the human race, despite dictators and demagogues, may also achieve the right to be their individual selves.

  From The New York Times, August 29, 1937 © The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.

  September 1, 1937

  Mr. Sinclair spends time with the quintuplets every day, to their delight. And ours, I suppose. He is unfailingly gallant with all of the nurses and staff and a natty dresser, but also has a rather wicked sense of humor that is keeping us all amused. Ivy would like him. He livens the place up like she did. Maybe it is because he is also a city man, from Toronto, but he strikes me as a younger Fred. And, like Fred, he doesn’t look right through me. So many physicians, scientists, politicians, artists, film stars, and dignitaries have passed through these halls without registering my existence, my invisibility intact. George—Mr. Sinclair—has never made a comment about my face and I’ve never caught him looking at my birthmark. He even holds my eye when he speaks with me, something Dr. Dafoe himself has a hard time doing. He has quite nice eyes, actually. Deep brown, with long dark lashes.

  George has to write three newspaper columns each week about the daily lives of the quintuplets. These are Dr. Dafoe’s columns, but, according to George, the doctor scarcely even looks them over and seldom suggests any changes. We’ll be breakfasting with the girls and George will be pacing up and down the corridor outside, his fine shoes clattering. Then, as soon as we’re finished, he’ll needle us with questions. “How often do the girls eat scrambled eggs? What about hard-boiled eggs? How many?” If he wasn’t so polite, he’d get on our nerves, but if anything his questions amuse us.

  A few days later, right as rain, “Dr. Dafoe’s Column on the Quintuplets and the Care of Your Children” will devote several inches to the health benefits of eggs for toddlers. Today George was hot on the case of potty training. Dr. Blatz believes the toilet schedule has been successful, so starting next week the girls will wear diapers only at night. I’m expecting we’ll be doing a lot of laundry. But George is already poring over the past twelve months of the girls’ “toilet records” and asking us about bowel movements and hydration. I’m sure most men would find this terribly embarrassing, but not George. Dr. Dafoe also has him reviewing the major Canadian and American dailies for any articles about the quintuplets. Today I got up the nerve to mention that I’ve been keeping up a scrapbook that started at the girls’ birth, and he is kindly providing me with anything he comes across.

  In the afternoons, he tends to sequester himself at his desk in Dr. Dafoe’s office to tackle the mail, and we might not see him for several hours. But we can usually count on him to reappear later in the afternoon to regale us with stories of the latest lunatic advice to arrive by post—the necessity of goat’s milk for healthy toenails or coffee rinses for shinier hair. Not all of the letters are funny, of course. The doctor and the quintuplets receive mail from cities and countries I’ve never heard of, where people live in quite different circumstances than we do here. It’s astonishing that people, no matter how hard their lives, might take the time to write to our little nursery, to tell us how comforted they are knowing that the girls are healthy and safe.

  September 10, 1937

  IVY VISITED TODAY. She looked beautiful in a white dress covered in butterflies of every hue, caped sleeves, a full skirt to just below the knee. The girls quickly abandoned their games to dash over and examine this latest princess-visitor, pointing at the fabric and exclaiming at the colors. They were so sunny and friendly, it took both Ivy and me a moment to realize they didn’t recognize her. They were simply being welcoming. After their interest in her dress, purse, and hat had abated, they bumbled off again, more or less forgetting that they had a visitor at all.

  Tears welled up in Ivy’s beautiful big eyes, and she started fumbling through her bag for a handkerchief. I put my arm around her and tried to explain that they get so many glamorous visitors these days and had been quite ill recently so were still a bit under the weather. Ivy couldn’t be consoled. Sweet Annette, who is truly the most maternal of the group, noticed Ivy dabbing at her eyes and returned, her own eyes pooling and her arms outstretched, offering a hug. “No ba-ba-bah,” the little one said. This was too much for Ivy, who crouched down and permitted Annette to reach around her pretty dress and stroke her gently on her back, as she’d seen us do with her sisters, repeating herself in a soothing burble. “No ba-ba-bah.”

  I had thought Ivy would stay for lunch, but she said she was too upset. We scarcely had time to visit at all.

  September 17, 1937

  IT IS NIGHTS like these I would do anything to have Ivy back here so we could sit up late and talk things through. There is no one else who’d understand.

  Sometime around five this afternoon I was reading to the girls in the quiet playroom. There was a bit of a commotion at the back door, so I stepped into the hallway to make sure everything was okay. It was Simon, our policeman, speaking with Marguerite, the housekeeper, saying that a visitor was asking for Dr. Dafoe. Of course we are always having visitors seeking Dr. Dafoe, but typically the guards turn them away at the main gate or contact Dr. Dafoe themselves. Somehow this one had made it past the external and internal gates and was, presumably, waiting on the back porch to be admitted.

  “She was causing some trouble across the street,” Simon was saying in a low voice. “It was M. Dionne who asked that she be escorted off the property, so I brought her here.”

  Marguerite said something I didn’t catch, and Simon said: “I can’t send them away like this, ma’am. And she’s insisting on speaking with the doctor.” I heard the screen door creak open—an anxious sound, it seemed to me—as I hurried into the kitchen.

  Imagine my surprise. It was Nurse Nicolette. I almost couldn’t recognize her. Her baby face was much thinner now, her hair longer and unkempt, and her eyes were swollen, her gaze flickering all over the room like the nervous flame of a candle waiting to be dowsed. No sooner had I recognized her than I realized what she was carrying: a baby, quite a good-size little chap, or at least I assume it was a boy—the soiled blanket in which he was swaddled was a pale blue.

  Simon and Marguerite looked relieved to see me.

  “Inès?” I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

  She looked up, but if she recognized me, she didn’t show it. Instead she started crying again and saying in French, “I must see Dr. Dafoe, I must see Dr. Dafoe.”

  “We’ve put in a call to the doctor in town,” Simon said to me in English. “I told him Nurse Nicolette was here for a visit, but he says he is otherwise engaged and we must convince her to go.”

  I paused, wondering if I should summon Miss Beaulieu, but she had never met Nurse Nicolette and I didn’t want her to be angry with the guards for admitting Inès to the premises. Simon turned his head sideways so as to be able to murmur something more quietly, beside my ear. “She was creating quite a scene at the Dionne farmhouse, hammering on the door and scaring the other children. Some of the tourists were taking photos . . .”

  I crouched down beside Nurse Nicolette and explained in French that the doctor was away and asked her if she needed medical attention, or whether there was anything I could do to help. She glared at me, then shook her head, wiping at her blotched face with her sleeve, turning her shoulder toward me, and hunching over the child. Truly it was so hard to comprehend the changes in her—she’d been so fast
idious about her appearance and her comportment when she left us last year. Now she seemed older and more drawn, but also unraveled, undone. So things had worked out for her just as I’d feared.

  “This must be your baby,” I murmured, trying to calm her down. I reached toward the baby, meaning only to lay my hand on his little head—he was a boy, I could confirm that now, but with curly, dark brown hair and long dark lashes, so much plumper than the quintuplets had been at this age, which I estimated to be roughly three months old.

  Inès wrenched her arms to one side, away from my outstretched hand, letting out a sound that was part cry, part growl. I had a feeling in that moment that she’d already fought to keep her arms around this baby and she wasn’t going to let go of him here. She curled her gaunt frame around the boy and started sobbing again, her thin shoulders quaking in her drab and faded dress.

  I stood again and said that I was going to go and get Miss Beaulieu, which I did. By the time we returned, however, Inès was gone, and Simon with her.

  “She burst out the door when you left,” Marguerite said. “Sergeant Blaine went after her, and I’ve just seen him helping her into the car. He offered to take her back to the train station,” she added.

  Miss Beaulieu pinched her glasses primly on her nose and gave me a stern look, which suggested I’d interrupted her for no reason, but I hadn’t. Why had Inès come back? Why wouldn’t she let me hold the baby? Now I have a million questions and no chance of getting answers. I need to write to Ivy.

  September 18, 1937

  I TRIED TO speak with Dr. Dafoe about Nurse Nicolette’s visit, but he brushed aside my questions, telling me it was none of my concern. But surely it should have been his?

  He is completely preoccupied with the upcoming publication of Dr. Blatz’s research on the quintuplets and has been asked to write the foreword, which of course will simply mean more work for George. In fact, I’d like to talk about Nurse Nicolette with George, or Lewis maybe. But what exactly would I say? This was some private tragedy, surely, some medical secret for which she felt she needed the doctor’s help. Had Simon taken her to see Dr. Dafoe in town, or to the station, as Marguerite had suggested? Surely Dr. Dafoe could tell me something to let me set my fears to rest?

  October 1, 1937

  I STILL HAVEN’T sent my letter to Ivy. I don’t have her address and I don’t want to send it to her “secretary” in Toronto. Fred is meeting her back in Toronto over Thanksgiving weekend and says he’d be happy to take her a letter himself. I’m not sure what I’ll do.

  Fred took some very funny photos with the girls today. The Star sent us a turkey, of all things, a live one! I was worried about this great fat bird and what he might do to the girls, but this one was very tame and harmless. Indeed, the girls were more afraid of him than he was of the girls. It took considerable urging by Fred before Annette, Émilie, and Marie could be persuaded to stand anywhere close to the turkey—Cécile and Yvonne were having none of it. Émilie was the bravest, reaching out to stroke the funny thing, then shrieking with laughter as he jolted away on her.

  “Shoh-shoh!” she proclaimed before he clucked off across the yard, flapping his wings. I’m sure they must have thought they’d received a very strange pet—yet another thing that will be here today and gone tomorrow. I certainly won’t be the one to explain to them what they are eating for Thanksgiving supper!

  October 24, 1937

  DR. BLATZ’S Collected Studies on the Dionne Quintuplets is finally being published. Dr. Dafoe, Miss Beaulieu, and of course Dr. Blatz, who will arrive this weekend, are crowing from the rooftops about this groundbreaking publication. I’ll have to read this great oeuvre to understand all the commotion. We’ve slavishly stuck to his silly schedules for Nourishment and Toilet Time while the girls have submitted patiently to all the prodding and poking, the countless photographs and measurements, and the endless prints of their hands and feet. My deepest wish is that they could now be allowed to simply be themselves.

  Not just yet, however. We’ve heard that several hundred scientists will be descending on us Sunday. A year ago we could rely on the Dionnes to kick up a fuss about this kind of thing, but Oliva Dionne is no doubt rubbing his hands together in glee at the idea of hundreds of deep-pocketed doctors and university professors visiting his souvenir stand.

  The girls are blissfully oblivious, preoccupied today with mastering their tricycles, building their sand castles, and hooting over the costumes they were given for their Halloween photo shoot.

  November 1, 1937 (Toronto Star)

  * * *

  300 SCIENTISTS ON EDGE ON MEETING QUINTUPLETS; TAKE STORK-STONES

  CALLANDER, Ontario—Yvonne is the most motherly of the Dionne quintuplets, Marie is the most sympathetic, Émilie is the most independent, Cécile the most unpredictable, and Annette the most aggressive.

  So Dr. William E. Blatz, University of Toronto psychologist, thinks. Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, their physician, thinks they are “just five smart kids.”

  The descriptions were given as 300 child specialists, psychologists, and students concluded a two-day meeting in which they studied the Quints on the basis of reports by Dr. Dafoe and his brother, Dr. W. A. Dafoe, of Toronto, and a group of eight U of Toronto psychologists under Dr. Blatz.

  The scientific meeting was divided into two stages, discussion of the reports in Toronto Saturday, and a visit to the children here yesterday. The psychologists travelled to Callander by special train and peered through glass and wire mesh at the youngsters singing and playing. The youngsters seemed even more entertaining than usual. But they forgot their toys when their father, Oliva Dionne, entered their yard. The five rushed to him to be kissed.

  After watching the quintuplets in action for about two hours, the scientists left muttering much the same adjectives as the average tourist uses: “A rare treat”; “wonderful children”; “Gosh, they’re great,” and so on.

  The Quints, dressed in their Sunday best, took the whole thing in stride, and were less nervous than were the visitors themselves.

  Some of the women picked up a few of the famous Callander “maternity pebbles,” reputed to have a magical influence on the stork, before they left.

  Used with permission.

  November 17, 1937

  Émilie didn’t have a single accident in her underwear all morning! She’s been the slowest of the girls to make progress with the potty schedule. I’m so proud of her, and I told her so.

  November 18, 1937

  WINTER HAS COME, with a vengeance, yet the girls are still playing outside in the observation area twice per day. They are enthralled with their new toboggans—our arms are aching from pulling them along through deep snow—and they don’t seem to mind the cold. But I mind. I’m tired of the public show. The snow has slowed the number of visits, but it hasn’t halted them altogether. Lewis has had to plow the road between the train station and Quintland for the last three days.

  November 24, 1937 (Toronto Star)

  * * *

  TOO MUCH TURKEY TALK!

  CALLANDER, Ontario—This garrulous old gobbler survived Thanksgiving all right, but talked so much about his clever escape that people began to think of Christmas. Now he realizes his error, but it’s too late, because sturdy Émilie Dionne of the famous quintuplets, pictured here, has a good grip on his tail feathers and her foot in his leash, and all he can do is gobble a warning to his heirs against the dangers of bragging. In the few weeks left before Yuletide he will have time to meditate upon the fruits of his indiscretion.

  Used with permission.

  December 1, 1937

  Another year, another nurse—now it is Nurse Dubois who has packed up her bags and flounced out of our lives and, more to the point, out of the lives of our little girls. They are bereft once again, asking me where she has gone and when she’ll be back. They really loved Sylvie—her booming laugh and endless energy for games and capers. She was larger than life, even more so in their strange and shrunken world.r />
  As best as I can tell, she didn’t quit—Dr. Dafoe and the other guardians asked her to leave. She was summoned to Dr. Dafoe’s office this morning and that was that.

  December 5, 1937

  THE NEW TEACHER’S name is Claire Tremblay—God, I miss Ivy. Miss Tremblay is quite strict and formal, a very devout Catholic, as she managed to inform me within the first thirty seconds of her arrival. The Dionnes no doubt approve. She comes all the way from Trois-Rivières and speaks almost no English. I am frequently acting as translator for George and Dr. Dafoe when they wish to ask her a question, or when she wishes to address one of them. She has taken the girls’ French education in hand and is particularly hard on Marie, whose speech is the weakest. Whenever anyone fumbles a verb or an article, or pronounces something incorrectly, Miss Tremblay pinches her shoulders back and thrusts her chin in the air, then takes a deep snort through her beaky nose so that the nostrils collapse inward. She looks like she’s trying to turn into an arrow. The girls are all a little afraid of her.

  December 17, 1937

  MY LAST DAY of work before Christmas—I have the week off and won’t return until after Edith’s birthday. Dr. Dafoe is visiting New York, which allows George to go on leave until the New Year. Miss Beaulieu will go back to Toronto for the holidays, and Fred is leaving soon to visit Ivy in Florida. It would be nice to stay at the nursery during this quiet time, but I, too, need a bit of a break. I’m sorry to miss Christmas with the girls, but of course we celebrated last week before Dr. Dafoe left on his holiday. He dressed up, as usual, in his red Santa suit and emptied his sack of toys as Fred took photo after photo. The Dionnes did not make an appearance. Perhaps Miss Tremblay will invite them all over for Christmas—she’s organized for Father Routhier to give Mass at the nursery. Needless to say, she has settled in quickly.