The Dionne quintuplets (; born May 28, 1934) were the first quintuplets known to have survived their infancy. The identical girls were born just outside Callander, Ontario, near the village of Corbeil. All five survived to adulthood.

The Dionne girls were born prematurely. After four months with their family, custody was signed over to the Red Cross, which paid for their care and oversaw the building of a hospital for the sisters. Less than a year after this agreement was signed, the Ontario government stepped in and passed the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935, which made them wards of the Crown until the age of 18. The Ontario provincial government and those around them began to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction.

The identical quintuplet girls were, in order of birth:

  1. Yvonne Édouilda Marie Dionne (died 2001)
  2. Annette Lillianne Marie Allard (died 2025)
  3. Cécile Marie Émilda Langlois (died 2025)
  4. Émilie Marie Jeanne Dionne (died 1954)
  5. Marie Reine Alma Houle (died 1970)

Family

The Dionne family was headed by father Oliva Édouard (1904–1979) and mother Elzire Dionne (; 1909–1986), who married on September 15, 1925.

They lived just outside Corbeil, in a farmhouse in unregistered territory. Including the quintuplets, Oliva and Elzire had 11 children born at home . The Dionnes were a French-speaking farming family with five older children: Ernest (1926–1995), Rose Marie (1928–1995), Thérèse (1929–2021), Daniel (1932–1995), and Pauline (1933–2018), who was only eleven months older than the quintuplets. A sixth child, Léo (1930–1930), died of pneumonia shortly after birth.

The Dionnes also had three sons after the quintuplets: Oliva Jr. (1936–2017), Victor (1938–2007), and Claude (1946–2009).

Birth

Elzire was 24 when she gave birth to the quintuplets. She suspected she was carrying twins, but no one was aware that quintuplets were even possible. The quintuplets were born prematurely. In 1938, the doctors had a theory that was later proven correct when genetic tests showed that the girls were identical, meaning they were created from a single egg cell. Elzire reported having cramps in her third month and passing a strange object, which may have been a sixth fetus.

Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe is credited with ensuring the successful live birth of the quintuplets. Organised pre-natal care was not practised at that place and time, so based upon his observations he thought Elzire's baby might have a "fetal abnormality". Throughout her pregnancy she suffered from fluid retention and anaemia. Dafoe delivered the babies with the help of two midwives, Aunt Donalda and Madame Benoît Lebel, who were summoned by Oliva Dionne in the middle of the night. All but Émilie were later discovered to be right-handed, and all but Marie had a counterclockwise whorl in their hair.

The quintuplets' total weight at birth was . The highest weight was and the lowest weight was .

News of the unusual birth spread quickly, sparked by Oliva's brother's inquiry to the local newspaper editor about how much he would charge for an announcement of five babies at a single birth. Before long, people from all over North America were offering assistance. Individuals sent supplies and well-meant advice. A famous letter from Appalachia recommended tiny doses of burnt rye whisky to prevent diarrhea. Charlie Blake, a reporter from the Chicago American newspaper, found an old incubator from 1895 that did not run on electricity, which was important because the Dionne home did not have electricity, and brought it to the Dionne home.

A second incubator was brought by the Toronto Star newspaper, which had three more built from antique blueprints. Assistance was offered by women who donated their breast milk to the quintuplets. The women were compensated for their donations, receiving ten cents per ounce of milk donated. This allowed women to help with household income during the Great Depression. Once the milk was received, it was preserved and sent by train to the quintuplets. Dr. Alan Brown of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children ensured that twenty-eight ounces of breast milk was delivered to the quintuplets each morning. The parents were persuaded to agree on the advice of the doctor present at the birth, Dr. Dafoe, and the family priest, Father Daniel Routhier.

Oliva Dionne revoked the contract only days later, citing that it was invalid because his wife did not sign it. The Tour Bureau claimed otherwise. On approximately July 27, 1934, the first guardianship bill was signed. Oliva and Elzire Dionne signed custody of the quintuplets over to the Red Cross for a period of two years to protect them from this contract and in return the Red Cross would cover all medical costs. This included the nurses' wages, supplies, and ensuring that enough breast milk was shipped to the hospital. They oversaw the building of a hospital built specifically for the Dionne quintuplets. In February 1935, the Dionnes travelled to Chicago as "Parents of the World Famous Babies" and made stage appearances.

The Premier of Ontario at the time, Mitchell Hepburn, used the Dionne vaudeville trip as an excuse to extend the guardianship. He claimed that they must save the babies from further exploitation and, in March 1935, pushed the Dionne Quintuplets Act through government, which officially made the girls wards of the Crown and extended guardianship to the age of eighteen. Oliva Dionne had a seat on the Board of Guardians but he rarely attended meetings, as he felt his vote wouldn't matter against the other three guardians: Dr. Dafoe, Joseph Valin, a French-Canadian judge from North Bay, and Minister of Welfare David Croll. The stated reason for removing the quintuplets from their parents' legal custody was to ensure their survival and protection from promoters.

The government realized there was enormous public interest in the sisters and proceeded to engender a tourist industry around them. The girls were made wards of the provincial Crown, planned until they reached the age of 18.

Dafoe Nursery

Across the road from their birthplace, the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery was built for the five girls and their new caregivers. The girls were moved from the farmhouse to this nursery on September 21, 1934, and lived there until they were nine years old.

The Dionne sisters were constantly tested, studied, and examined, with records taken of everything. While living at the compound, they had a somewhat rigid lifestyle. They were not required to participate in chores and were privately tutored in the same building where they lived. Cared for primarily by nurses, they had limited exposure to the world outside the boundaries of the compound except for the daily rounds of tourists, who, from the sisters' point of view, were generally heard but not seen.

Until the quintuplets' birth, Dafoe was a country doctor. He received additional attention when he delivered the quintuplets and was seen as a doctor having much knowledge on child care and health. Until 1942, when Dafoe retired, he was known as the world's best doctor. He wrote a book and numerous pamphlets and had a radio broadcast, all with the intention of helping mothers with infant care. The quintuplets brought in more than $50 million in total tourist revenue to Ontario. Quintland became Ontario's biggest tourist attraction of the era, surpassing the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Hollywood stars who came to Callander to visit the Quints included Clark Gable, James Stewart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, and Mae West. Amelia Earhart also visited Callander just six weeks before her ill-fated flight in 1937. Only five people could be in a room with the quintuplets at one time. These individuals were sprayed with disinfectant. – directed by Norman Taurog and starring Hersholt

  • Five of a Kind (1938) – directed by Herbert Leeds and starring Hersholt, as well as Claire Trevor and Cesar Romero as competitive radio journalists

In the first two films, the Dionne quintuplets didn't so much act as simply appear. Their scenes were filmed at Quintland in Callander and largely consisted of them playing and interacting with each other, as one would expect of normal 2- and 4-year-old children. Both films concentrated more on telling the (fictionalized) story of the heroic doctor who delivered the Wyatts and took care of them, than it did on the Wyatt quintuplets themselves.

The Dionne quintuplets also appeared in numerous newsreels and a short documentary film called Five Times Five in 1939. This film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Two-reel) in 1940. In 1942, they appeared in one of James A. Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks Land of the Quintuplets shortly before they were returned to their parents. In 1998, the three surviving sisters, Cécile, Annette and Yvonne, participated in an hour-long documentary, "Full Circle: The Untold Story of the Dionne Quintuplets", written and directed by Maya Gallus, and broadcast on the CBC documentary series Life & Times.

Trust fund

The quintuplets' trust fund grew rapidly with each newspaper and newsreel that shared their name. In 1934, a photographer from the Toronto Star, Fred Davis, signed a contract stating that the $10,000 () the Newspaper Enterprise Association put into the trust fund disallowed anyone else from photographing the quintuplets for a year, including their parents. Each newsreel that Pathé News made meant that a deposit between $12,000 to $15,000 was made in the trust fund. The Madame Alexander Doll Company offered the quintuplets five percent of its total sales ($25,000) as many people bought dolls that resembled the quintuplets, especially during Christmas. By their second birthday, their bank account had $250,000.

The nursery was eventually converted into an accredited school house where the sisters finished their secondary education along with ten Roman Catholic girls from the area who were chosen to attend.

When the family was reunited, many struggles followed. The quintuplets felt distanced from their siblings. They struggled to communicate as the family spoke French while the quintuplets were brought up in English under Dr. Dafoe.

Once Oliva received custody, he wanted attention. He made police accompany his vehicle as he took the quintuplets out, constantly drawing attention to them and himself. He bought liniment claiming it would help with Yvonne's chest cold. As a 13-year-old she felt pressured to undress in front of her father. Her father rubbed the liniment on her neck, sternum, shoulders, and ribs. Then, he turned to Émilie and told her he needed to apply the liniment on her too. The quintuplets feared going for car rides with their father and felt the need to dress extra conservatively on these rides because of him. Annette wore turtlenecks to prevent her father from violating her. During car rides the girls were squished up front with their father as the back seats were in for repair. He allegedly French kissed them and put his fingers down their blouses. Émilie devoted her brief life to becoming a nun. Yvonne finished nursing school before turning to sculpting, then later became a librarian.

Émilie died at age 20 as a result of a seizure. She had a series of seizures while she was a postulant at a convent and had asked not to be left unattended, but the nun who was supposed to be watching her thought she was asleep and went to Mass. Émilie had another seizure, rolled onto her stomach and, unable to raise her face from her pillow, accidentally suffocated.

In 1965, author James Brough wrote a book, in cooperation with the then four surviving sisters, called We Were Five. Pierre Berton published a biography called The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama in 1977 and narrated a 1978 National Film Board of Canada documentary. John Nihmey and Stuart Foxman published the fictional Time of Their Lives — The Dionne Tragedy in 1986. Nihmey and Foxman's book was the basis for the 1994 TV miniseries Million Dollar Babies, produced by CBC and CBS and starring Beau Bridges, Roy Dupuis and Céline Bonnier.

thumb|Yvonne, Cécile and Annette Dionne in 1999

In 1997, the three surviving sisters wrote an open letter to the parents of the McCaughey septuplets, warning against allowing too much publicity for the children, after which they reached a $4 million settlement with the Ontario government as compensation for their exploitation. Cécile died on July 28, 2025, at the age of 91. The last surviving quintuplet, Annette, died on December 24, 2025, also at the age of 91.

Museums

The original family homestead was moved around 1960 to a location on Highway 11B, near the present Clarion Resort, and again in 1985 to North Bay where it was converted into the non-profit Dionne Quintuplets Museum. The museum was first located at the intersection of Highway 11 and the Trans Canada Highway and featured many artifacts from the quints' early days and growing years. , the museum closed, and the city of North Bay was considering selling the building as surplus, though a petition was circulated by citizens to have it designated and preserved as a historical structure. In 2017, plans surfaced for the city to sell the building, and relocate it to a fairground in the village of Sundridge 75 km south of North Bay.

A second museum, the Callander Bay Heritage Museum, also features many artifacts from the Dionne quintuplets and is located in the previous home of Dr. Dafoe.

In the short story "Mandarin Jade", Raymond Chandler wrote in Chapter 3 of "an advertising calendar showing the Dionne quintuplets rolling around on a sky-blue floor". In chapter 11 of his 1939 novel The Big Sleep, Chandler described "an advertising calendar showing the Quints rolling around on a sky-blue floor, in pink dresses, with seal-brown hair and sharp black eyes as large as mammoth prunes".

thumb|Dionne Quintuplets – School Days, painting by [[Andrew Loomis, 1938]]

Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny said the fictional Ouellet quintuplets in her book How The Light Gets In "were certainly inspired by the Dionne girls".

In the 1935 film A Night at the Opera, Chico makes an oblique reference to the quintuplets, when he says that "duplicates" are "those five kids up in Canada".

In the 1936 film My Man Godfrey, Angelica Bullock, played by Alice Brady, references the Dionne quintuplets with the line, "If a woman in Canada can have five children, why can't Godfrey?"

The 1936 song "I Like Bananas (Because They Have No Bones)" by Henry Hall explains that "Those healthy five Dionnes, they all eat bananas, 'cause they have nae any bones!"

Three of the Dionne quintuplets (Marie, Annette, Yvonne) were referenced by Curly Howard in the Three Stooges short "False Alarms", saying, "Look at the little baby hoses, quintuplets!") released on August 16, 1936.

In Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise (1939), towards the end of the film, Moe Howard tells Curly to wish for quintuplets and Curly responds, "we'll honeymoon in Canada" with their new found loves to make the wish come true.

The Buster Keaton short "Ditto" (1937) ends with scenes set in Canada, fifteen years into the future. The final sight gag is a visual reference to the Dionne quintuplets, who are first-name-checked on the back of camp chairs in which five supposedly identical women are sitting.

In the 1937 British comedy film Oh, Mr Porter!, Will Hay's character "Porter" puns on "Murphy" telling him his wife's had quinsy (a complication of tonsillitis), replying "What, like that woman in Canada?"

In the 1937 song "Hooray for Hollywood", a stanza Gene Krupa sings from the extended version goes, "Perhaps you'll be another Papa Dionne, your name in neon, if you get lucky you could! Yes, buddy, you'll arrive if you can top his five - Hooray for Hollywood!"

Disney: Pluto's Quin-Puplets (1937)the first animated short officially starring Plutowas cleverly created in the wake of the 1930s craze for the quintuplets: Pluto and Fifi are seen as "Mr. And Mrs. Pluto", the parents of five mischievous mini-Plutos.

In the 1939 film The Women, Joan Crawford's character Crystal Allen schemes to convince her boyfriend of her domestic skills. Her friend jokingly asks her, "Why don't you borrow the quintuplets for the evening?"

In the final scene of the 1940 film River's End, Cheeta, newly married to Andy Dijon, questions her choice of husband, complaining among other things that French Canadians do not make good papas. Her enthusiasm for the union is renewed when Andy points out that the only man in the world who is papa to five babies at the same time is French Canadian.

In the 1941 film Dumbo, a musical number, titled "Look Out for Mr. Stork", contains lyrics mentioning "those quintuplets and the woman in the shoe".

In the 1944 film The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, an American girl has six boys. The news makes headlines around the world. A newspaper headline is shown: "Canada Protests: 'Possible But Not Probable.' Says Premier".

In the 1945 film Duffy's Tavern, Archie, played by Ed Gardner, asks another character (Miss Duffy), "what else did you see while you were up there [in Canada], did you see the, uh, quintuplets?!"

In the 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon Baby Bottleneck, Daffy Duck is shown taking phone calls from a handful of celebrity fathers including Eddie Cantor, Bing Crosby and Oliva Dionne (who is quickly dismissed by Daffy with a curt "Mr. Dionne, puh-lease!").

Stephen Sondheim referenced the quintuplets in his song "I'm Still Here" from the musical Follies with the line "I got through Abie's Irish Rose, five Dionne babies, Major Bowes..."

A 1978 documentary Dionne Quintuplets, narrated by Pierre Berton, included news footage and interviews.

The 1994 TV miniseries Million Dollar Babies was based on the novel Time of Their Lives—The Dionne Tragedy.

The publicity around the birth and display of the quintuplets inspired the 1999 episode of The Simpsons, "Eight Misbehavin'.

The South Park episode Quintuplets 2000 was partially based on the Dionne Quintuplets.

The 2000 Disney Chanel original move “Quints” focuses on the dangers of the limelight for a set of quintuplets.

In 2018, the birth of the quintuplets was named a National Historic Event.

The fourth episode of the Amazon television series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is called "The Disappointment of the Dionne Quintuplets".

E. L. Doctorow references the quintuplets in his novel World's Fair (1985) in a chapter 2 passage: "I don't trust that doctor", she said of the physician attending the Dionne quintuplets. "He likes the limelight too much."

References

Bibliography

  • Translated by Kathe Roth.
  • .
  • James Brough; Marie Dionne; Annette Dionne; Cecile Dionne; Yvonne Dionne. "We were five": the Dionne quintuplets' story from birth through girlhood to womanhood. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1965. .
  • Dionne Quints digitized historical information authorized by the sisters, funded by an Ontario grant
  • Life and Times: Full Circle: The Untold Story of the Dionne Quintuplets at CBC.ca
  • The Dionne Quints Museum at North Bay & District Chamber of Commerce
  • The Dionne Quintuplets at Well Known People Who Happen to be Canadian
  • Dionne Quints Ahnentafel – 14 preceding generations from year 1515
  • Dionne Quintuplets at The Canadian Encyclopedia
  • The Dionne Quintuplets at Neonatology on the Web (neonatology.org)
  • All about the Dionne Quintuplets at the Quintland.com Gallery of Multiples

Media

  • , , , ,
  • Dormant Dionne Virus Flares Blog with several video clips, Part 2, Part 3
  • Small collection of "Quintland" videos at YouTube