The first Famous Five

Remember last week’s article in the From abroad page about the Famous Five - Georgiana, Julian, Ann, Dick and their dog Timothy? I am sure all of you know them by name and what they have been up to.

Today I am going to tell you about another Famous Five. In fact, they are the first ‘Famous Five’ and they are real girls NOT fictitious (imaginary or invented, not real) characters like the new ‘Famous Five,’ who were created by Enid Blyton.

This Famous Five are quintuplets, five identical girls, born 74 years ago in May 1934. Twins, as you know, are two children born at the same time, a few minutes apart. Triplets are three children and Quadruplets are four children born at one birth. Five children born at one birth are quintuplets and they are often referred to as quins.

The Dionne Quins born on May 28, 1934 remained the most famous children for about 10 years from their birth. Those who are over 65 years will remember the Dionne Quintuplets - five identical brown-haired chubby girls, named Annette, Cecile, Emile, Marie and Yvonne.

Quintuplets had been born before these five girls, but they didn’t live more than a few days. These five were the first quintuplets to survive their infancy. So they became the most famous, most feted (celebrated), most photographed five children of that generation.

They were the daughters of a French Canadian couple, Oliva and Elzire Dionne. The Dionnes had five children already. They lived in a farmhouse without water or electricity, outside a hamlet called Corbeil near Collander in Ontario, a province in east Canada. The neighbours did what they could, but no one expected the babies to survive.

The quins were taken away from their parents when they were four months and placed in a hospital with a nursery built especially for them and their caretakers, across the road from their farm. This was to ensure maximum protection from germs. Incubators where premature and weak babies are kept were unknown in the mid -1930s. The Quins were born two months before they were expected.

They were under the care of Dr. Alan Dafoe, who had attended on the mother when they were born. It was the tireless efforts of Dr. Dafoe and his team that kept the five infants alive.

For fear of germs, visits from their parents and brothers and sisters were rarely allowed. In the nine years they lived in that hospital, they were not allowed to play with other children or to do family chores like washing up after meals. They played together, ate together and slept together. They lived like one unit. The nurses were the mother figures. They didn’t know what the world outside the fence was like. The hospital was their world.

The custody of the Dionne Quins was also taken away from the parents. The Government of Ontario became their guardian. This step seemed necessary because the Quins were drawing crowds to the little village.

When news got around that five tiny girls born at the same time were kept in a special hospital, people from all over Canada, and from other countries too came to the little village to see them.

They kept on looking at them when they were brought out twice a day by their nurses to the special viewing gallery and the air was filled with “aahs” and “ohs” as the nurses stood behind the glass holding the Quins. Over 6000 people visited the observation gallery per day.

The Dionne Quins became Ontario’s biggest tourist attraction. The village Corbeil became a boom town; everyone cashed in. Oliva had two souvenir shops and sold his autograph for 25 cents. Hotels, restaurants and cafes sprang up.

Every employable adult in the locality was doing some work connected with the quins. While Dr. Dafoe and his team of 20 nurses gave round-the-clock care, a Hollywood film crew from Pathe’ photographed and filmed every waking moment of the girls’ strictly controlled lives. There were more than 10,000 photographs and hours of film footage of their totally enclosed and restricted childhood.

Many years later, Yvonne recalled that these scenes, ‘The Quins at play,’ were all tightly organised. The birthdays were celebrated a month in advance so that the film could be shown in the cinemas on the right date. She said their parents were never invited and the presents were empty boxes.

The five sisters along with Dr. Dafoe were used to publicise commercial products such as corn syrup and Quaker Oats, among hundreds of other popular brands.

They starred in four Hollywood films: Country Doctor (1936), Reunion (1936), Quintupland (1938) and Five of a Kind (1938). Since the girls were wards of the government of the State of Ontario, the money from all these films and advertisements went to the government.

In all, the Ontario government made an estimated 500 million dollars from tourists alone. The money for appearing in these advertisements also went to the government, as the guardian of the quins, until they were 18 years.

Annette and Cecile, the only surviving quins, now live quiet lives in Montreal.

- Sumana Saparamadu