The Quintuplets | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

In 1934, a woman named Elzire Dionne 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. >> [music] >> On May 28th, she went into labor very early in the morning.
Her aunt came to the house. She'd helped deliver Elzire's babies before. >> [music]
>> Auntie Legros comes and sees that things just don't seem right. Elzire doesn't
She's just not well, and she's frightened. Author Sarah Miller. >> [music] >> And so, they call the local midwife, and
the two midwives deliver one, then two, and then, in shock, three baby girls. In
the meantime, they have also had [music] 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 [music] are All five of them together weigh under 14 lb. The doctor, Allan 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,
"They're not going to be alive come daylight. I'm going home." Brian Callaghan, Elzire 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 you're kidding me. Come on." And he says, "No." You know, his
sister-in-law has just given birth to five little girls, and the editor says, "It It's free. We're going to print this
one for nothing." That morning, about 6 hours after the birth, a reporter and photographer from
the North Bay Nugget arrived at the Dionnes' house. Elzire'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 uh put on by telegram and sent all over the world.
The babies were identical. At first, they were just labeled A, B, C, D, and E, but within a few days, they had names:
Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie. The smallest baby was 2 lb 4 oz. Everyone 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
putting 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. Um you know, hot water bottles pinned to the sides of the
basket because they 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 Leroux. She stayed up through the night with the quintuplets.
The 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.
Elzire Dionne had actually had trouble nursing her singly born babies. Her milk supply was was not that high.
And so, they have to improvise. What are they going to feed these these babies if
they keep living? Um and at first, it's just water. And then, he comes up with this improvised
formula of cow's milk and corn syrup. But there are these really frightening spells when they start to turn blue, and
you know, 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° 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.
They had to go into the the basement or the attic of this medical supply warehouse in Chicago, and this fellow
called Charlie Blake >> [music] >> 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. Dr. Dafoe famously
said, you know, if somebody asked him, "What do they look 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 Leroux 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 Dionne family. The article read, "Have good chance of surviving, states quintuplets doctor."
Mr. and Mrs. Dionne don't fare as well with the press. So, Mr. Dionne in particular, um but even Mrs. Dionne is
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 They'll think we're pigs." And that's kind of in reference to
sh >> [sighs] >> 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. Dionne, 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 You talk like I should be put in jail." But 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 we want your babies," they are
offering solutions to so many problems that just arose so suddenly, such as who's footing the bill? Nobody 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 travel expenses. We will pay your living expenses for yourself, your wife, all of your children."
They said they would also pay for the babies' medical care for up to 6 weeks before coming to the fair.
Oliva 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 the 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. $250 a week and over 20% of ticket sales. Within about 24 hours, Oliva Dionne
begins to regret signing that contract. Um 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'll
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 Dionne are going head-to-head as if
Mr. Dionne 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. I No, I won't let you do this." When in fact it was Oliva Dionne'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 Elzire 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 Oliva Dionne is still bound by
that contract he signed, but the Red Cross is not. So, if they transfer custody,
the children are protected. And so, with great reluctance, but with no other way around it,
Oliva and Elzire sign a different, a brand new contract. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
We'll be right back. To listen without ads, join Criminal Plus. >> [music] >> In July of 1934,
Elzire and Oliva Dionne signed a contract which would give the Red Cross guardianship of the quintuplets for 2
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 Dionnes' house. While 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 Elzire 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 uh Grandpa Dionne cuts a hole in
the wall. He makes a little window so that she can look through from her bed and see into the babies' room.
Construction on the new hospital began in August. People are literally sending nickels to
Northern Ontario to help build the hospital for these babies. Um one little girl from Rhode Island
sent a nickel and said, "Well, I wish I could send more, but Daddy only works 3 days a week to keep us five going, so
that's >> [music] >> all they could spare, but they wanted to send all they could spare."
In late September, [music] when the quintuplets were just under 4 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. There 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 It's all going to be here for
them and we are going to make these children the most perfect children you ever saw.
Elzire and Oliva were allowed to visit at any time as long as no one in their house was sick. The official policy is
anytime you want, they're your children. Come on in. But the 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 nurses' gaze. And Elzire 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 Dionnes' house. Once 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 Oliva Dionne,
"Okay, in 2 years, these five children are 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. It was basically just displaying themselves. All they did, >> [music] >> 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. We gave them a beautiful hospital. The [music] 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, Cecile, Emilie, and Marie, making them wards of the crown until they're 18 years old to save them from
the exploitation that now people seem to believe um they will suffer at the hands
of their own parents. Are they allowed to do that? Uh they did it. >> [laughter]
>> It caused a great deal of debate in the legislature, but ultimately, the Dionnes' five daughters became wards of
the crown. It was called the Dionne Quintuplet Guardianship Act and it made the Minister of Public Welfare the
quintuplets' 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, Elzire and Oliva packed bags and tried to move into the hospital in protest,
but a police officer showed up and after 2 hours, they went home. They said over and over again,
"We're raising these five other children. Nobody has has complained about them."
And they they characterized it as kidnapping. The quintuplets were 9 months old.
That spring, Dr. Dafoe had started letting some visitors inside the hospital between 2:00 and 3:00 in the
afternoon to look through a window into the nursery. It turns out that that that gazing
through the windows kind of seems to make the babies nervous. And so, they change tactics and start
displaying the the children on the front porch of 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. And because they were identical, they could dupe the public. So, if Cecile was
having a rough time, they could just show Emilie 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. Babies 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.
So, you enter, if you're a member of the public who wants to see the Dionne 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 the observatory is lined with
cork and felt to muffle sounds. People are admonished not to speak and stuff, but
they do cuz they just can't help themselves. They are not to take pictures. They 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 all
times. You're not to linger. So, the children um 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 babies' 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, and there are others who are like, "That's nonsense,
because they observed the girls even you know, after the public had left, if the
children were given access to those windows, they would take their building blocks and 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. Emilie took
particular delight in climbing the jungle gym and may you know, looking precarious and and making people gasp
and wonder if she was going to fall. And there were times when it it did some nurses said it it seemed to disturb
them. They seemed to not want to be there." Between 3 and 6,000 people came every
day to see the quintuplets. Outside the gates of the hospital, all kinds of tents and stands had started
popping up to sell things to tourists. Newspapers called it Quintland. Elzire's aunt was the first one to open
a tent. She sold food, she sold souvenirs, she she told her story, offered autographs.
The two midwives um wrote a little pamphlet describing the births and the family and everything that they would
sign. Oliva 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. If they've come that far, well, you might as well offer them hotels and restaurants and
fishing excursions, and the girls' uncle Leon ran a gas station, and he installed
five gas pumps and put Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie, and Marie's name each had 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 Dionne quintuplets. And when you've got to drive a couple hundred
miles north of Toronto, that adds up. Newspapers 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 in advertisements. Doctor Dafoe gave endorsements. Products like Karo syrup, Palmolive
soap, Colgate toothpaste, Baby Ruth candy, anything Doctor Dafoe said was the best
for the Dionne 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. And when Doctor 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 if the Dionne quintuplets are receiving this, then I'm
going to trust that and that it's best for my child, as well." In 1937, Doctor Dafoe said,
"There isn't any point in bringing them up as normal children. They must learn to be looked at, talked
about, and studied without losing their sense of proportion or their ability to enjoy life.
And because they will always have to buy their privacy and pay dearly for it, we
are trying to build up sufficient funds to make it possible for them to have peace and freedom as the years go by."
The money from the photographs and advertisements went into a trust fund for the quintuplets, managed by the
guardianship board. Oliva was a member of the board, but he stopped attending meetings
[music] when he kept being outvoted. Elzire was worried the quintuplets weren't getting enough [music] to eat.
She fought with the nurses. When a nurse left her job at the hospital and the quintuplets would cry,
they remembered Elzire would get angry. The nurses are put in this position where
they are the children's parents in [music] practice. They're never supposed to speak sharply.
They're never supposed [music] to physically discipline the children. But on the other side of that is they're not
supposed to hug and kiss them, either. So, for instance, when they're put to bed at night, it's you're put in your
crib and it's lights out. There's no toys. >> [music] >> There's no singing. There's no rocking
chair. There's none of that kind of routine. Twice a day, the quintuplets had their
hair curled. Researchers visited to analyze their physical similarities, their handprints and eyelids, and their
personalities. It was reported Doctor Dafoe had them on a special diet to, quote, "keep them
from growing too fast." On holidays like Halloween and Valentine's Day, they did special photo
shoots. Their birthday parties were filmed. Later, Cecile said, "The gifts were all empty boxes.
The cake was a big hole. It was always like that. There was no cake at all when we cut
it." The quintuplets were allowed to leave the hospital for the first time when they were about 5 years old
to meet Queen Elizabeth in Toronto. By 1940, Oliva had filed two lawsuits against Doctor Dafoe.
He demanded that Doctor Dafoe reveal how much he was making from advertising contracts
and put his profits in the trust fund. Doctor Dafoe resigned from the guardianship board, and Oliva withdrew
the lawsuits. By then, World War II had begun, and fewer Americans were making trips to
Quintland. And the way that journalists wrote about the quintuplets was changing.
As the girls grew up, they became There's There's not a nice way to say it. They weren't as cute as they used to
be. They got to be perfectly ordinary-looking little girls. And that didn't have the same draw
as these adorable little ringleted toddlers. A nurse who had taken care of them as
babies came to visit them at Quintland in 1942 when the quintuplets were seven and told a reporter,
"I was disappointed in them. I thought they were not as pretty." Another former nurse spoke up saying she
felt sorry for the quintuplets. The tide of public sympathy starts to turn toward Mr. and Mrs. Dionne and away
from the doctor. Dr. Dafoe had been diagnosed with colon cancer and went away for surgery.
And it's like 6 months or so. It's It's quite some time before they see him again.
And in that intervening period, they've realized that the expectation is to love their parents.
They can feel that expectation from their parents now. And so, when Dafoe returns from his
recovery, the feeling between them is very, very different. One nurse said, "They just wouldn't go near him. We
literally had to push them." Later, the quintuplets said, "We were old enough to know that mom and
dad did not want us to do that. We were anxious to please." Then Dr. Dafoe died of pneumonia.
>> [music] >> He was 60. No one told the quintuplets for 6 months. And in 1943, at 9 years old, the girls
were sent home to live with the rest of their family. They have two new little brothers have
been born. So, now there's seven siblings that they haven't seen that much of. >> [music]
>> And they're all expected to just magically have [music] this this fairy-tale reunion everything is
supposed to be great. And Cecile and Yvonne, like one says it and the other snaps her fingers and they say, "It was
like that." All of a sudden, >> [music] >> your life as you know it in the nursery
is over. We'll be right back. I've heard the story all my life growing up. I'd be at my grandparents' house
every weekend. Brian Callahan. His mother, Therese, was one of the Dionne quintuplets' older sisters.
She was 14 when the quintuplets were sent home to live with the rest of their family on their farm.
They'd moved into a new house that Oliva had built with money from the quintuplets' trust fund.
They called it the big house. As a a young boy, I I'd play in that house when it stood empty.
When the quintuplets moved back in, Oliva said he wanted everyone to act like one big family.
One way or the other, the siblings weren't interested in being part of the family with the quints, and the quints
in turn weren't interested in being part of the family with the siblings, >> [laughter]
>> if you can understand that. For the first time, the quintuplets were separated into different bedrooms.
At dinner time, at the table, they weren't seated together. They were all sandwiched between their siblings.
Oliva didn't think the quintuplets should go to a regular school. So, they eventually started a private
school for them in the old hospital nursery. Instead of having the siblings go to
school with their sisters, uh they then interviewed and selected 10 young ladies from the surrounding area
to come in and go to school with the quints as their classmates. Later, one of their classmates said,
"They wouldn't confide in us for a long, long time. You had to really, really work on gaining their confidence."
When they did, the quintuplets would ask the other girls questions about everything, going to the movies, getting
soda, having boyfriends. At first, the quintuplets slept at the school during the week.
But when they got closer with their classmates and teachers, Oliva told them, "Morally, those people are taking you
farther and farther from your parents. They are there to divide our family once again."
After that, Oliva wanted them to come back to the big house for meals and to sleep.
There was no bonding, even for the 9 years that they actually did live together.
They didn't know each other. You had the five princesses. They were raised by the nursing staff.
Everything was done for them. They had no concept how to take care of themselves, let alone do farm work.
Meanwhile, the other siblings, they were out still out working the farm. Mr. Dionne wanted them to be one of the
family, not one of five. But they they craved that that fiveness, you know, that togetherness that they'd had for
almost a decade together in the nursery. That that feeling to them was home to them more than any physical place.
And yet, they wanted to be individuals, also. They were very weary of being treated as a group with no no
differentiation between the five of them. So, they kind of wanted to go their separate
ways, and yet they really didn't know how or what it would be like to live like that.
When they were 18, Oliva enrolled them at a small Catholic women's college in Quebec.
Even though it was, you know, the small world of the campus, they felt that freedom and really
reveled in it, in addition to being able to be together as much as they wanted and [clears throat] craved with no no
punishment >> [music] >> for that. So, it's the first time in their life when they were free. Yeah. Yeah, it
really is. And I I believe Annette and at least one other of her sisters put it very much
like that and said I it was like being a bird. After about a year, Marie left school to
join a convent. And then, so did Émilie. Émilie has epilepsy, which is a huge secret.
Almost nobody outside of the family knows it. And while she is in this convent contemplating whether, you know, to
stay, if this is really for her or not, she has a seizure and she dies. Her sisters were all at home visiting
when they got the news. They were 20 years old. Cécile said there was There was a part
of her that she almost believed that they were immortal because it it had been such a
miracle that they had lived. She didn't fully understand, it seems, that they could also die.
>> [music] >> But at the same time, they say that was the real start of them finding their
individuality because once there's only four instead of five, then the public's attention really, really diverts. It's
like they're not They're not magic anymore. [music] There's a picture of the five of them
together. Émilie is in a casket. Yvonne later said she remembered thinking, "Émilie is still playing the part of a
quintuplet for the camera, >> [music] >> even though she's dead." Oliva opened their house to anyone,
{quote} genuine in their grief. And 5,000 people came to see Émilie. Shortly after, Yvonne, Annette, Cécile,
and Marie found out about their trust fund. Because they had no concept of its accumulation, they did not know how much
had been just sort of dribbled or siphoned away. The account contained about $800,000 for
the sisters. They would get access when they turned 21. Émilie's share would be split among all
the members of the Dionne family. But there were rules about how and when they could use the money.
And they had to keep paying to maintain their parents' house. Marie left her convent and decided to
use the money to open a flower shop called Salon Émilie. She liked to give flowers away to
friends and churches. The shop closed after 6 months. Annette and Cécile both married.
Cécile used trust fund money for her wedding and left her bouquet at Émilie's grave.
Marie married, too. All three had children. Yvonne went to nursing school and eventually became a librarian.
They all stayed in Quebec. Marie died at 35, reportedly from a blood clot in her brain.
Cécile eventually divorced. So did Annette. Her husband seems to have been a very
good, kind, understanding man. But as he said, you know, he would he would make plans with his wife in the morning,
go to work, and then come home and find that the plans had been changed because like Yvonne showed up and the two
sisters just changed everything. And he said, I you know, I only married one person.
It's you have to choose. It's either me or it's them. As Yvonne, Annette, and Cecile got
older, they stayed close, often calling each other every day. For a while, they moved in together.
And the money that was left in the trust fund dwindled. Cecile's son, Bertrand, he
was very aware of his brother's financial struggles, even as like a kid in school. He knew. And he remembered
very specifically somebody coming into class and they had a pencil with his mother's face and his
four aunts' faces on it. And he thought, why is there this pencil with their faces on it and they don't
get any money for this? So, as an adult, he goes to the Archive of Ontario and he starts digging into the
quintuplet guardianship files and looking for the financial records. In Toronto, Bertrand found that between
the ages of 4 and 10, half of the quintuplets' trust fund had been spent. >> [music]
>> And the records of the first 3 years of guardianship board meetings had been burned by the welfare minister.
>> [music] >> He comes home with like literally suitcases full of documents, discovering things like when the welfare
minister, who was part of the Dionne quintuplet guardians board, when he would come to North Bay and to [music]
look over the books, he wasn't charging his lodging and his [clears throat] fish
and chips to his government department. He was charging it to the Dionne quintuplet account.
The Dionnes were being billed for their own birthday presents. They were being billed for the toilet paper [music] in
the public washroom at Quintland. The quintuplet fund had paid [music] for Mr. Dionne's new cars. The girls had
unknowingly paid [music] tuition for their siblings' educations. They paid for Dr. Dafoe's stamps and
telephone bills and telegrams. The nurses' tennis court. Anytime somebody could dip into there
and justify it as necessary for maintaining that whole Dionne show, they did. And then Bertrand found out about the
gas tax. In the Quintland years, Ontario had increased its gas tax to 6 or 8 cents a
gallon versus the 2 or 3 cents in other provinces. That was really a big fat nail in the
coffin for him saying, that's proof that the government knew what these children were {quote} worth to the
province and that they were being used to make money. Bertrand went to court to get royalties
back for use of the sisters' names and faces, which no one had paid since 1957. They asked for $10 million
in restitution from the government of Ontario. More than a year later, the Ontario
government offered to pay Yvonne, Annette, and Cecile each $2,000 a month for the rest of their lives.
And they find it just deeply offensive. Like, we didn't ask for an allowance, you know, this was this was money that
was set aside for us. Where is it? The sisters decided to hold a press conference in Toronto.
They take the sort of for them unprecedented step after all those years of being, in my
opinion, abused by the media, they finally took the reins. And then the premier offers $2 million
and the Dionnes say, "No, not enough." He offers $3 million and they and they say, "No, not enough." And
finally he says $4 million and an inquiry into the accounting and they accepted that.
Brian Callahan says that beyond that press conference, the sisters had hardly ever come back to Ontario.
He remembers seeing them when Oliva died in 1979. What were your aunts like at the
funeral? Very very soft-spoken. You you wouldn't know that they were there. They just kind of blended in.
In 1995, Annette, Yvonne, and Cecile said publicly that Oliva had sexually abused them as children.
They said that it had taken a long time to talk about. {quote} But that's normal for something so deep.
They remembered telling a priest when they were younger. And he felt bound by his religious duty
as as if that had been a sort of confession that he didn't think he was able to tell that outside of the the
confession booth. When the news came out, Brian's mother, Therese, told a reporter,
we assert that we had good parents and that to our knowledge, our father was certainly not a sexual abuser.
They just didn't understand how a secret so monumental could have been kept when they were all in the same
house. All the other siblings actually uh signed [snorts] a joint letter denying anything to that fact,
refuting the claims of the quints. I I believe that it didn't happen, but I who's to say?
Yeah, I mean, that must be that must be a difficult thing to have circulating, you know,
very divisive. I can only imagine for a family. Oh, yes, it was. Yeah. And you have to understand that to this
family, due to what they were put through, the number five to them was like a number 13 to most families,
considered unlucky. Brian remembers when his younger brother joined a junior ice hockey team.
His name wasn't Dionne, so nobody knew his relationship. Uh what number do you think they gave
him to wear playing for the North Bay Trappers? Five. My mother refused to go and watch him
play hockey because he was wearing the number five. Extreme? Certainly. But that's the way it was with the family.
Today, there's a Dionne Quint Museum in North Bay, Ontario, inside the log house
where the quintuplets were born. Brian lives nearby and leads tours there. I actually had a uh
94-year-old woman come up this summer. Her son drove her up from Colorado. And she was actually she actually came
up when she was 3 years old to see the quintuplets [music] with her grandparents, drove all the way
up expecting to play with them. And of course, she wasn't allowed to play with them.
So, she made a pilgrimage, so she called it, to come up and fulfill her uh the one item on her bucket list for
that. And she's not the only one. Brian says another woman told him she visited because it was her own mother's
dying wish. Sometimes the museum gets donations of vintage dolls and other quintuplets
memorabilia people collected. In total, over 3 million people came to see the Dionne quintuplets at Quintland.
You have to understand that it was in the depression era and it gave people a a ray of hope, you
know, something to something to brighten their day. Annette Dionne told the New York Times,
I think the museum staying in North Bay will help them from making foolish choices like what they did to us.
It should never be repeated again. >> [music] >> In 2016, Cecile told the Montreal Gazette
that her son, Bertrand, who'd been managing her money for her, had disappeared. Her money was gone
and she was made a ward of the state. >> [music] >> Last year, she and Annette, the last
surviving quintuplets, died. They were 91. [music] >> [music] >> To see the famous photo of Elzire Dionne
and the quintuplets [music] on the day they were born, go to our Instagram at criminal_podcast
or find us on Facebook at thisiscriminal. We're also on YouTube at youtube.com/criminalpodcast.
Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. [music] Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sugioka, Lilly Clark, Lena
Sillison, >> [music] >> and Meghan Kenneain. Our show is mixed and engineered by
Veronica Somenetti. >> [music] >> Sarah Miller's book is The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets. You
can find a link on our website. Julian Alexander [music] makes original illustrations for each
episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter
at thisiscriminal.com/newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program
Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll
get bonus [music] episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spore talking about
everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week to things we've been
enjoying lately. >> [music] >> To learn more, go to patreon.com/criminal. Criminal is part of the Vox Media
Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

When Elzire Dionne gave birth to five identical babies, she caught the attention of reporters and doctors hundreds of miles away, the Chicago World’s Fair – and the Ontario government. Before the quintuplets were ten months old, they passed a new law: the Dionne Quintuplet Guardianship Act. “These children are our own royal family.”

Sarah Miller’s book is The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets (https://www.rhcbooks.com/books/547459/the-miracle-and-tragedy-of-the-dionne-quintuplets-by-sarah-miller).

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Join Criminal Plus on Patreon for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, listener chat rooms, behind-the-scenes content, and more membership perks. https://www.patreon.com/Criminal

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We also make the podcasts This is Love (https://pod.link/1337100398) and Phoebe Reads a Mystery (https://pod.link/1503921457).

Artwork by Julienne Alexander: http://www.yssrs.com/. Check out our online shop: https://shop.thisiscriminal.com/

Episode 357 originally published March 20, 2026. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-357-the-quintuplets-3-20-2026

Music in this episode: “Drawing Room_Soft Start” by Blue Dot Sessions “Miniatures” by Blue Dot Sessions “Base Camp” by Blue Dot Sessions “The Maison” by Blue Dot Sessions “Ile Duchess” by Blue Dot Sessions “Cigar Singles” by Blue Dot Sessions “Throughput” by Blue Dot Sessions “Footsteps on Alden” by Blue Dot Sessions “Neon Conch” by Blue Dot Sessions “Papercase” by Blue Dot Sessions “Harper’s Desk” by Blue Dot Sessions “Ranch Hand” by Blue Dot Sessions

Brief Summary

The episode details the birth and exploitation of the Dionne quintuplets and their struggles with fame and family dynamics.

Key points

The Birth of Quintuplets. Elzire Dionne gives birth to five identical daughters, shocking the world.
Public Reaction. The Dionne family faces intense media scrutiny and public fascination after the birth.
Guardianship Act Passed. The Ontario legislature seizes custody of the quintuplets to protect them from exploitation.
The Observational Playground. A special observatory is built for the public to view the quintuplets at play.
The Quintuplets' Popularity. In 1937, the Dionne quintuplets became a bigger tourist attraction than Niagara Falls.
A Shift in Public Sympathy. As the quintuplets grew up, public opinion began to turn against Doctor Dafoe.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They're not going to be alive come daylight. I'm going home.

Dr. Dafoe's grim prediction after delivering the quintuplets.

1:43WatchApr 24, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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