How was the fate of the Canadian five sisters

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

They say that children are happiness, and there is never too much happiness. In the thirties of the last century, an extraordinary event took place in Canada. In a large family, fives were born! The chances of meeting this in nature are approximately one in 55 million. The chances that the children will be exactly the same are incalculable at all. How was the fate of the children who were treated like exotic animals at the zoo from childhood? Why did those who, it would seem, from childhood are doomed to be happy, did not become so?

Elzir Dionne, by this time already a mother of five children, did not know that she was destined to give birth to fives. Her doctor and she herself suspected that Elzir would have twins. But no one could guess that the woman wears five. Dionne was in shock. The birth of five girls in an already large family just knocked the mother off track. She could not come to her senses, screaming in hysterics: "What am I going to do with all these babies?"

Fives - Annette, Emily, Yvonne, Cecile and Marie were born on May 28, 1934, near the village of Corbeil in northern Ontario. They were born two whole months ahead of schedule. Baby Dionne are the only absolutely identical fives, the first in history to survive in infancy. The five of them weighed just over six kilograms. The smallest weight of the sisters was 840 grams, and the largest one, 13 kilograms.

They were so tiny, so weak. The birth itself went, one might say, quite easily, given such a unique number of twins. But the girls themselves were in a rather serious condition. Barely alive, with serious respiratory problems, they had no chance of surviving without medical attention. The conditions of a poor farmhouse without heat and electricity were completely unsuitable for these kids.

Local physician Allan Roy Dafoe, who attended the birth, did an amazing job. In such difficult conditions, without access to medical equipment, given the level of development of medicine in those years, it was just a feat and an example of professionalism. Defoe managed to save the lives of all five premature babies. The doctor carried out a complete sterilization at home, he put the children in a large wicker basket, where he warmed them with hot water bottles. Allan Dafoe hired nurses to massage the girls using olive oil and feed them according to his instructions. The sisters were to receive cow's milk diluted with sterilized water, with the addition of corn syrup. One or two drops of rum were dripped into the mixture to stimulate appetite and vitality.

As news of the unusual kids spread throughout North America, reporters and photographers flooded in. The representatives of the press were followed by thousands of people who wanted to see this miracle. Onlookers gathered near Dionne's house, crowded in the street, even looked into the windows. All of this began to turn into some kind of monstrous show. Some people ridiculed the parents of fives for the fact that they had children in such numbers. At the same time forgetting that this is a purely personal matter. Other people, on the contrary, realizing how hard it is now for the family, tried to help somehow. Someone helped with money. One married couple offered to buy a bed where the girls were born for a thousand dollars. The hospital has sold two incubators.

Everything began to take on some incredible fantastic turn. In the end, a representative of the Chigag International Fair contacted the father of the fives, Olive Dionne, and offered to show the girls at the fair. The farmers were in dire need of money, but exhibiting their children at the fair? Oliva was desperate. He turned to a local priest for advice. To the surprise of the family, the priest not only advised them to accept the strange proposal, but also offered himself as a business manager.

The hasty signing of the contract caused remorse almost immediately. Oliva tried to cancel the deal, but Chigag Fair promoters refused. On the advice of their lawyer, Oliva and Elzir Dionne signed a document that transferred the right to raise fives to the Red Cross organization for a period of two years. This document provided for the protection of children from exploitation.

The Red Cross has built a separate house for the girls across the street from their farm. There they were treated like princesses. But despite all the wonderful, almost heavenly conditions, the children were deprived of the main thing - the care of loving parents. Oliva and Elzir were never allowed to be alone with their children. Wherever the parents went with their fives, they were always, as it were, superfluous. Once a wrong decision made them forever strangers to each other.

After just a few months, the state government completely stripped Oliva and Elzir Dionne of parental rights. The girls were placed under the full care of the state until they reached the age of eighteen. Soon the house where the fives lived turned into a real children's zoo. The outdoor playground was designed in such a way that the sisters did not see tourists watching them during the game. All the care of the girls fell on the shoulders of specially hired staff - three nurses, two maids and a housekeeper. The authorities paid increased attention to the protection of children, they were guarded around the clock by three policemen. The estate was surrounded by a two-meter fence, the top of which was entwined around the entire perimeter with barbed wire. There were various warning signs around them, stating that silence was required and that photographing children was prohibited.

The girls were brought up in an atmosphere of strict discipline. They had a strict, strict daily routine. The rise was at 6:30 in the morning, the children drank orange juice, took fish oil. After the morning hygiene procedures, they were combed, followed by morning prayer and breakfast. After breakfast, they played in the solarium for thirty minutes, took a fifteen-minute break, and at nine o'clock they had a mandatory medical examination with Dr. Defoe. Dinner was served at exactly six o'clock in the evening. Before going to bed, the children had quiet games in a quiet playroom. After the evening prayer, the girls went to bed.

As the fives got older, they began to appear in commercials. The companies and products varied widely. These are food products: Heinz ketchup, Quaker oats, Lifesavers sweets, bread, ice cream. Hygiene products, for example, Palmolive soap, Lysol. Manufactured goods such as typewriters, mattress toppers and much, much more. Trade in various souvenirs was very brisk. The souvenir shop was run by the father of fives - Oliva Dionne. The shop was located directly opposite the house where they lived. They sold photo frames, cups, everything with the image of girls. They sold sets of five-figure dolls imitating sisters.

The girls even starred in films. They have three Hollywood films to their credit. The exploitation of unusual children for nine years has brought to the treasury of the state of Ontario, no less - more than $ 50 million in total tourism revenue. During this time, fives were Ontario's largest tourist attraction, surpassing even Niagara Falls in popularity.

In 1943, after nine long years of litigation, Oliva and Elzir Dionne secured the return of custody of their children. But the reunion did not bring any happiness to any of them. Wealth has changed the family. Easy money spoiled the character of Oliva and Elzir. Elzir became very cruel to children. She could not only afford to shout at them, her own mother insulted and even beat them. Then it got worse: their own father began to molest the girls. “They did not treat us like children,” Annette and Cecile told The New York Times in 2017. - We were their servants, slaves. We were treated just inhumanly."

When Annette, Emily, Yvonne, Cecile and Marie turned 18, they went to study in Quebec. After graduation, they settled there. Emily died young, she was only 20 years old. Untreated epilepsy resulted in a fatal seizure. Marie died in 1970 from a blood clot in the brain. By this time, the sisters received their share in the trust - $ 183,000 each. Today this amount is equivalent to $ 1.3 million. In 1998, three survivors of the fives sued the state government for their exploitation and received CAD 4 million in compensation. Yvonne died in 2001.

The sisters still defend in court their rights to the old log house, where the city authorities opened a museum. The house was moved from place to place several times. Its owners changed. In October 2015, the mayor of the city decided to close the museum and sell the house along with the adjacent land. According to the mayor, the maintenance of the museum has become too expensive, the museum no longer brings its former profit. In the city nowhere to find even a mention of the wonderful fives, there is not even a single commemorative plaque.

Jeff Fournier, a famous Canadian collector, expressed his very negative attitude towards this development of events. “I watch this, thinking: this is real madness, this cannot be in reality, they cannot just take and get rid of the museum. People thought the Council would take care of all this. Mr Fournier launched an online petition not to destroy the house, but to move it to a new park on the shores of Lake Nipissing. Fournier was supported by a mass of people.

The mayor of the city also spoke positively about this idea, but he is against the maintenance of the museum for the money of the city. The debate divided the city in two. There are citizens who support the idea of maintaining the museum, and there are those who are categorically against it. Meanwhile, the fives' home, the Defoe hospital, is gradually falling into ruins.

Annette and Cecile, two survivors of five sisters, remember with pain how they were exploited by the authorities, but smile at the mere mention of life in Quintland. "It was heaven," Annette said of the complex. “Has it ever really happened?” Cecile echoes her dreamily. The grid prevented the sisters from seeing the audience, they did not know that onlookers were watching them intently. “It’s not good for children to be shown like this. Children need to play naturally and know that they are being watched,”said Cecile. "It was a kind of theft against us."

In 2012, Cecile's son emptied his mother's bank account and disappeared, leaving her again in state custody. She now lives in a government nursing home. Annette lives in Montreal. Both of them seem to have resigned themselves to the possibility that life will give them another disappointment. Annette said she still hopes the house will be preserved as a museum. Not only for the sake of mentioning their miraculous birth, but most importantly, to serve as a public warning. “I think that the museum, located in the Northern Bay, will help block the making of stupid decisions, such as what they did to us,” she said. “And it will never happen again.” If you are interested in this story, read another our article about unusual children who became famous all over the world.