Today marks the 72nd birthday of the famous Dionne Quints. Five girls, all born of a single egg in 1934 in Callander, Ontario, were the first set of quintuplets to survive, and fell prey to the Depression era’s ravenous appetite for entertainment and human interest news.
In the ten years in which the girls were displayed in the zoo-like Quintland hospital they were studied and observed by a fleet of curious medical professionals, and over 3 million tourists came to view the children from their nursery balcony. Taken as wards of the Ontario government, the children were alienated from their parents and were reported to have said the word “doctor” before they learned the word “mother.”
After nine years, they were reunited with their parents, but time could not be rewound and the girls permanently separated from their family at 18, and the three remaining sisters (two died as young women) fought for years for a share in the estimated half-billion dollars of profit made off their careers as side-show attractions, and have since written a book about their experiences.
Parodied in Woody Allen’s treatise on 30’s fad culture, Zelig (1983), mentioned in the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera (1935), and the subject of many films, shorts, newsreels, books, magazines, and documentaries of their own (as well as inspiring the "Dr. Christian" series of the 30s and 40s), the Dionne Quints (Annette, Cecile, Yvonne, Marie and Emilie) became a major slice of pre-war pop culture and remain a nostalgic reference that any Depression era buff would instantly recognize. Sadly, they also stand out as an example of how common goodness can easily fall prey to greed and sensationalism.
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