The Quintuplets

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1:01farm app or go online at statefarm.com. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

1:09In 1934, a woman named Elzer Dion was pregnant in Ontario. She was 25. She and her husband, Oliva, lived on a farm and already had five children. And now she thought she might be having twins. She was due in July. On May 28th, she went into labor very early in the morning. Her aunt came to the house. She'd helped deliver Elzier's babies before. Auntie LeGro comes and sees that things just don't seem right. Elzier doesn't, she's just not well, and she's frightened. Author Sarah Miller. And so they call the local midwife, and the two midwives deliver one, then two, and then, in shock, three baby girls.

2:02In the meantime, they have also had Oliva go for the doctor, go get Dr. Dafoe. So the doctor arrives just as the third baby is delivered, and he scrubs up and he assists in the delivery of two more infants. How big are these babies? They're so tiny. They are, all five of them together weigh under 14 pounds. The doctor, Alan Roy Dafoe, had helped deliver a set of quadruplets 26 years earlier, but none of them had lived more than a week. There were no records of any quintuplets anywhere in the world that had survived longer than 50 days. He then looked at the babies and made a statement to the midwives.

2:53They're not going to be alive come daylight. I'm going home. Brian Callahan, Elzeer and Oliva's grandson. As Dr. Dafoe was leaving, Oliva's brother Leon arrived. The doctor told Leon about the five babies. He actually called the newspaper in North Bay called the North Bay Nugget and inquired about placing a birth notice in the newspaper. And he asked if a notice for five babies would cost more than just a regular notice for one baby. The editor thinks it's a joke. He's like, Leon, you're kidding me. Come on. And he says, no, you know, his sister-in-law has just given birth to five little girls.

3:36And the editor says, it's free. We're going to print this one for nothing. That morning, about six hours after the birth, a reporter and photographer from the North Bay Nugget arrived at the Dion's house. Elzier's aunt let them inside to take a picture. It was a picture of my grandmother laying in bed with the five babies right beside her. And at the time, that picture was put on by telegram and sent all over the world. The babies were identical. At first, they were just labeled ABCD &E. But within a few days, they had names. Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emily, and Marie. The smallest baby was two pounds, four ounces.

4:26Everyone was concerned for all of them. But Marie's existence was by far the most precarious because she was just so little. So initially, like, they're opening the oven door and putting a basket on the door and putting the babies in this basket in front of the open oven because they need to be kept warm. You know, hot water bottles pinned to the sides of the basket because they need an incubator, but there is no such thing within hundreds of miles. Dr. Dafoe drove to the Red Cross to get more help. That evening, they sent a 21-year-old nurse named Yvonne LaRue. She stayed up through the night with the quintuplets.

5:11The next day, at 5.30 a.m., Dr. Dafoe got a phone call from a newspaper editor in Chicago, asking if the babies were still alive. Then a journalist from New York called. Then a doctor, a health commissioner in Chicago, who said he was an expert on premature babies. He asked Dr. Dafoe what he needed. Elzeer Dion had actually had trouble nursing her singly-born babies. Her milk supply was not that high. And so they have to improvise. What are they going to feed these babies if they keep living? And at first it's just water. And then he comes up with this improvised formula of cow's milk and corn syrup.

5:56But there are these really frightening spells when they start to turn blue. and they're not getting enough oxygen is what the real issue is. But he concocts another little formula with diluted rum, which he's instructing the midwives and nurses to give them to bring them back. The doctor in Chicago said he would send frozen breast milk. And he said that the babies needed to be kept at 85 degrees with an incubator. But the Dionnes didn't have any electricity. Chicago newspaper sends one of its reporters with an incubator. They find an incubator that does not need electricity. Very old-fashioned model.

6:38They had to go into the basement or the attic of this medical supply warehouse in Chicago. And this fellow called Charlie Blake gets on a train with this incubator and speeds north with it. A reporter and photographer from the Toronto Star brought a car full of supplies and gifts when they came to take pictures of the babies. To everyone's astonishment, they just keep living. I mean, they say that in the newspapers over and over again. They're still breathing. They're still living. People, that's such a basic thing to say, but it is so unheard of. It has never happened in 400 years of recorded medical history.

7:17Dr. Dafoe famously said, you know, somebody asked him, what do they look like? Like he said, like rats. One of the reporters said that you would almost swear they're transparent when he saw one of them lifted up like for a bath or diaper change. There's a picture of Nurse LaRue holding one of the girls, and that baby's entire torso is contained in her palm. The day after the babies were born, the Toronto Star printed three pictures of the Dion family. The article read, have good chance of surviving, states Quintuplets' doctor. Mr. and Mrs. Dion don't fare as well with the press, Mr. Dion in particular.

7:59But even Mrs. Dion, the very morning of the birth, when she first talks to her husband about what's just happened to them, she says, what will people think? They'll think we're pigs. And that's kind of in reference to, there's not a great way to put it. she feels like people are going to think she's had a litter of babies and that that's somehow vulgar. And Mr. Dion, when he's first confronted with the press, they ask him, well, do you feel proud of yourself? And something about the tone or the manner of that question got right under his skin immediately. And what he swore to his dying day that he said was, you talk like I should be put in jail.

8:47But what they reported him as saying was, I'm the type of fellow that should be put in jail, as if he was indeed ashamed of having fathered so many children at once. And that encounter would taint his view of the press for the rest of his life. The next day, May 30th, the Toronto Star reported that Oliva had agreed to take the quintuplets to the World's Fair in Chicago. A promoter had reached out to him about a deal to put the quintuplets on display there. When the World's Fair calls and says, hey, we want your babies, they are offering solutions to so many problems that just arose so suddenly, such as who's footing the bill?

9:34Nobody has really talked about who's paying the nurses, who's paying the doctor? Who's paying for these shipments of breast milk that come every day? Their family literally doubled overnight. They had five children on May 27th. They had 10 children on May 28th. And the folks at the World's Fair say, if you bring your babies here, we will give them the best care that is medically available in the city of Chicago. We will pay your expenses, We will pay your living expenses for yourself, your wife, all of your children. They said they would also pay for the baby's medical care for up to six weeks before coming to the fair.

10:16Oliva went to ask their local priest for advice. They drove south so they could meet the promoter and to review the contract. He wanted a provision added saying if the children weren't well enough to travel, that, you know, the contract was off. The promoter said okay, and Oliva signed the contract. When he arrived home, there were even more cameras and journalists waiting outside. Some had dressed as nuns, coming to pray for the babies in an attempt to get inside. Oliva refused to talk to them or be filmed. The World's Fair promoter announced that they'd signed a contract, and newspapers reported exactly how much money Oliva would make from exhibiting the quintuplets.

11:07$250 a week and over 20 % of ticket sales. Within about 24 hours, Oliva Dion begins to regret signing that contract. I think in part because of the way people reacted. They think he's putting his daughters up for sale, more or less. The Cleveland Press reported that Dr. Dafoe did not agree with the decision Oliva had made. Quote, as long as I am boss, there will be no trip anywhere for these babies. The father can go if he wants to, but not the children. It appears publicly that Dr. Dafoe and Oliva Dion are going head to head as if Mr. Dion wants to take the children to Chicago and Dr. Dafoe is sort of like putting himself in front of the incubator and saying, no, no, no, I won't let you do this.

12:05When in fact it was Oliva Dion's insistence on putting that clause into the contract that gave Dr. Dafoe the power to say, we're not moving these babies yet. Oliva started trying to get out of the Chicago contract. He refused to cash checks from the promoter. He said the contract didn't mean anything because Elzeer hadn't signed it too. But the promoter said it was legally binding. The government comes up with this plan to protect the babies from being sent to Chicago, which is if the Dionnes will sign custody of those five children to the Red Cross, they will be protected. because Olivetian is still bound by that contract he signed, but the Red Cross is not.

12:56So if they transfer custody, the children are protected. And so with great reluctance, but with no other way around it, Olivetian and Elzeer sign a different, a brand new contract. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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14:46Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PC. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college pc. In July of 1934, Elzeer and Oliva Dion signed a contract which would give the Red Cross guardianship of the quintuplets for two years. The Red Cross would pay for the nurses and milk shipments. They began building a special hospital for the quintuplets across the street from the Dion's house.

15:30While they were waiting for the hospital to be done, a nurse partitioned off the parlor of the house for the quintuplets. Dr. Dafoe was so worried about the babies getting sick that he barely allowed anyone besides the nurses inside. The parents are left just sort of feeling like, almost like aliens in their own home. And Elzeer, after that birth, is not well for several days, if not weeks. So she's so distressed by her separation from her newborn daughters that Grandpa Dion cuts a hole in the wall. He makes a little window so that she can look through from her bed and see into the baby's room.

16:13Construction on the new hospital began in August. People are literally sending nickels to northern Ontario to help build the hospital for these babies. One little girl from Rhode Island sent a nickel and said, I wish I could send more, but Daddy only works three days a week to keep us five going. So that's all they could spare. But they wanted to send all they could spare. In late September, when the quintuplets were just under four months old, Dr. Dafoe and the nurses moved the babies to the finished hospital. It was billed as this sort of infant utopia, because everything was going to be modern and new and just for them and the best of everything.

16:59There were chimes that were rung at these certain hours for meals, for playtime, even for, like, there was six designated potty times during the day. There was this sort of aura around the science of child rearing, and it was presented to the public as though these children were going to have the best possible upbringing because we're going to have the latest in everything, scientifically, psychologically. It's all going to be here for them, and we are going to make these children the most perfect children you ever saw. Elzeer and Oliva were allowed to visit at any time, as long as no one in their house was sick.

17:47The official policy is anytime you want, they're your children, come on in. But the logistics and everything just make it feel very strange to the Dionnes. Who walks across the street to see their children? There's a fence with barbed wire, and they had to, like, ring a bell and wait for the guards to let them in. Once they're past those gates, they are always under the nurse's gaze. And Elzeer in particular felt very much like she was treated like a criminal, like she couldn't be trusted with her own children. Crowds of people had started driving to the hospital to see the quintuplets. But they would also gather around the Dion's house.

18:33Once a man broke their kitchen window and reached inside. In February of 1935, things have calmed down a bit. There's been some health scares with the babies that have passed, and things are seeming fairly stable. And once again, it dawns on Olivier Dian, okay, in two years, these five children are going to come home. Well, then what? We still have the same house. He still has the same job. That's more than he can financially stretch to. And so for that reason, the Dionnes explain, they go on a vaudeville tour in the United States in February of 1935. A theater agent from Chicago had proposed the idea to them for$1 ,700 a week.

19:25It was basically just displaying themselves. All they did, in essence, was say, you know, we thank you for your attention. We thank you for all of your care and your prayers and your donations. And Mr. Dionne said two or three sentences in English. And Mrs. Dionne said, thank you very much and may God bless you in French, because that was her native language. And that was it. Audiences loved it. But newspapers published jokes making fun of the Dionnes. They called Oliva a, quote, little shrimp, and the tour a flop. The premier of Ontario called it nauseating to Canadians, revolting and cheap. We're trying to save these children from exploitation.

20:09We gave them a beautiful hospital. The Red Cross is taking care of them. And now look at what their parents are doing. They're out exploiting and exposing themselves for money. In March, the Ontario legislature proposed a new bill about the Dionne quintuplets. The legislature proposes taking, forcibly seizing control and custody of Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie, making them wards of the crown until they are 18 years old to save them from the exploitation that now people seem to believe they will suffer at the hands of their own parents. Are they allowed to do that? Ah, they did it.

20:52It caused a great deal of debate in the legislature, but ultimately the Dion's five daughters became wards of the crown. It was called the Dion Quintuplet Guardianship Act, and it made the Minister of Public Welfare the Quintuplet's special guardian, along with a board appointed by the government. The minister said, these children are our own royal family. We want to make it possible for them to lead normal lives. When the bill passed, Elzeer and Oliva packed bags and tried to move into the hospital in protest. But a police officer showed up, and after two hours, they went home. They said over and over again, we're raising these five other children.

21:38Nobody has complained about them. And they characterized it as kidnapping. The quintuplets were nine months old. That spring, Dr. Dafoe had started letting some visitors inside the hospital between two and three in the afternoon to look through a window into the nursery. It turns out that gazing through the windows kind of seems to make the babies nervous. And so they change tactics and start displaying the children on the front porch of the nursery at set times during the day. They would put out a placard that said, Yvonne, and one of the nurses would come out and hold up Yvonne. And the people lined up at the fence would just cheer and fuss.

22:26And because they were identical, they could dupe the public. So if Cecile was having a rough time, they could just show Emily twice, just change the sign, change the nurse. bring out the same baby, and at that distance, no one was any the wiser. Are they being charged? No. No, it's always free, of course, because the government, the government can't exploit these children, and money equals exploitation. So there is no charge. Journalists and psychologists debated whether the public should be allowed to view the quintuplets. A well-known psychologist wrote in Cosmopolitan, life in a glass house is not conducive to normal human development.

23:10Babies are not fishes. But then he recommended they be separated and raised by different families, quote, to make them forget they are quintuplets. A judge on the quintuplets guardianship board said, these children are the treasures of the world. Why should they not be seen? They said, well, people are going to come no matter what, and the more we try to thwart them, the more obnoxious they're going to become. So we need to do it on our terms. And that's the tactic that they took. And what did they do? They built an observatory, a horseshoe-shaped building. And in the center of the horseshoe is a playground.

23:56so you enter if you're a member of the public who wants to see the dion quintuplets at play you enter through sort of the bottom of the u in that horseshoe and you file in one of two directions and there are these windows that allegedly are one way they've put these screens that are painted white over the windows so the theory is you can look out into the playground at the children, but they can't see you. And the observatory is lined with cork and felt to muffle sounds. People are admonished not to speak and stuff, but they do because they just can't help themselves. They are not to take pictures.

24:37They are just to file in an orderly fashion through this, you know, whatever leg of the horseshoe you choose. And you can go through that observatory as many times as you please during the observation period, but traffic must be kept in motion at at all times. You're not to linger. So the children, the policy states, health and weather permitting, are herded into their little private playground and are stared at for twice a day, every day. The observatory opened on July 1st, 1936, just after the baby's second birthday. How do they seem to react to this attention? There are mixed accounts. There are some nurses who claim that the children were completely oblivious.

25:23And there are others who are like, that's nonsense because they observed girls after the public had left. If the children were given access to those windows, they would take their building blocks and sort of climb up to the windows and wave at nobody. They knew people were in there looking at them and they would perform. Emily took particular delight in climbing the jungle gym and, you know, looking precarious and making people gasp and wonder if she was going to fall. And there were times when it did, as some nurses said, it seemed to disturb them. They seemed to not want to be there. Between 3 ,000 and 6 ,000 people came every day to see the quintuplets.

26:09Outside the gates of the hospital, all kinds of tents and stands had started popping up to sell things to tourists. Newspapers called it Quintland. Elzier's aunt was the first one to open a tent. She sold food, she sold souvenirs, she told her story, offered autographs. The two midwives wrote a little pamphlet describing the birth and the family and everything that they would sign. Oliver opened a booth, too. He sold photographs, postcards, and autographs for a quarter. In 1937, the Dionne Quintuplets were a more popular tourist attraction than Niagara Falls. Businesses are booming because these folks, again, that have come so far to see the famous Dionne Quintuplets, they need other stuff to do.

27:02If they've come that far, well, you might as well offer them hotels and restaurants and fishing excursions. And the girl's uncle, Leon, ran a gas station, and he installed five gas pumps and put Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emily, and Marie's name, each was assigned to a gas pump. And also, critically, it will come out later, the province is pocketing all kinds of money because they are charging a higher gas tax than any other province in Canada. Because they can, because people are going to pay it, because they want to see the Deon Quintuplets. And when you've got to drive a couple hundred miles north of Toronto, that adds up.

27:48Newspapers paid thousands of dollars for exclusive rights to photograph the quintuplets And Hollywood producers made a deal to shoot three movies in their nursery The Madame Alexander Doll Company made sets of five identical dolls named after the quintuplets Companies used their photos and advertisements Dr. Dafoe gave endorsements Products like Karo syrup, palm olive soap, Colgate toothpaste, baby Ruth candy. Anything Dr. Dafoe said was the best for the Dion quintuplets was perceived as the best for anybody. And he was paid for that. His influence was so great that at that time there was some hesitation toward things like pasteurization of milk and vaccinations.

28:39And when Dr. Dafoe comes out and says, pasteurized milk is best for your child, vaccinations are best for your child, that has a great effect on public health. So milk-borne illnesses decrease markedly, as do a lot of childhood diseases that people, you know, who had been wary about vaccinating their children, when they hear that the Dionnes are vaccinated and they see the pictures of the Dionnes being inoculated in the papers, they say, okay, if the Dionnes are vaccinated, beyond quintuplets are receiving this, then I'm going to trust that and that it's best for my child as well. In 1937, Dr.