The Quintland Sisters(15)
July 15, 1934
M. DIONNE, SHOWING uncharacteristic concern, has rigged up a much bigger fuel tank for the generator and moved the whole clanking contraption closer to the road, all by himself. He’s phenomenally strong, for such a small man. Now Shell Oil Company’s bright yellow bowser comes along every morning and tops it up for free. The Red Cross has provided separate incubators for all of the babies and organized for a steady supply of breast milk from hospitals in Toronto and Montreal. The little ones are putting on weight, ounce by precious ounce, Annette and Yvonne especially. But just as we start to get our hopes up, one or the other of them falls sick and scares the dickens out of all of us.
Ivy and the Red Cross nurses, Marie Clouthier, Nancy Ellis, and Nurse de Kiriline, are all living in the cabin built for them on the Dionne property, rotating shifts around the clock. Every one of them is tired to the bone, and they seem to keep a kind of competitive distance, as if they are all vying for the approval of Dr. Dafoe.
Only with me, I think, is Ivy able to simply be herself. She is always absolutely professional and would never think of goofing around with Annette or Marie in her arms. But if, for a moment, we have them all stowed away safely in their berths, fed and oiled, in fresh cottons, with a pause before the next one needs milk or changing, she will ask me to tell her a story or show her my scribble book, and we’ll be lifted out of our worries.
The fact is, we are worried. Ivy is keeping a journal where she dutifully records the daily weights and heights, feeds and bowel movements for each of the girls. If Marie is a half ounce lighter, or Cécile’s diaper is clean when it shouldn’t be, we are all scared rigid. Also looming in our minds, Ivy’s especially, is just how long the nurses will be allowed to look after the babies. Not a day goes by without Mme. Dionne lumbering into the nursery outside of the strict visiting hours—typically when the Captain is getting some rest—and bedeviling us with questions. “They are stronger, yes? Today? I can hold them?”
The doctor has explained to her again and again that the babies cannot yet be handled by anyone other than his staff. She simply doesn’t understand, her face crumpling, then twisting sour when she sees them in the arms of Ivy or the Captain. She contents herself by shuffling between the boxes that hold her daughters, muttering her prayers, and, when the Captain isn’t looking, sprinkling holy water on the glass tops of the incubators. We’ve also seen her knitting five darling little cardigans and bonnets in the softest pink: I shudder to think how she’ll react when she’s finished all five and is forbidden from dressing the girls.
Ivy says M. Dionne has sent the hundred dollars back to the Chicago businessmen, but it’s not clear whether the contract is still in place. Twice today, Dr. Dafoe huffed down the steps from the kitchen and stood in the yard surrounded by newspapermen with an air of studied chagrin, his thumbs hooked into the armholes of his waistcoat, elbows jutting, looking every bit like an owl swaying gloomily on his perch. He’s telling anyone who asks—and many who don’t—that any contract involving the girls requires his sign-off and that’s something he’ll never give. It still has us worried.
My world has shrunk, I realize that. I have no interest in anything happening outside the sweltering farmhouse, despite the snorts and exclamations from Father at the breakfast table, his newspaper rustling over his oatmeal. He says there’s a madman politician in Germany, blithely murdering his political opponents, and Babe Ruth has hit seven hundred home runs. I couldn’t care less.
July 27, 1934 (The Globe)
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ROEBUCK BREAKS QUINTUPLETS CHICAGO CONTRACT: ORDER OBTAINED FOR GUARDIANS OF DIONNE BABIES
Grandfather, Doctor Are Named Among Those Looking After Infants
NORTH BAY, Ontario—Acting in his function as “parens patriae”—father of the people—Ontario Attorney General Mr. Arthur Roebuck has obtained, through a North Bay solicitor, a judicial order appointing guardians for the quintuplets and so has defeated the “perfidious contract” which the father, Oliva Dionne of Corbeil, was induced to sign when the babies were four days old.
The order effectively removes the quintuplets from the custody of their parents and into government care.
Under the contract, the whole Dionne family was to be placed on exhibition at the fair, with Mr. Dionne receiving 23 per cent of the takings. Seventy per cent was to go to the Chicago tour bureau and 7 per cent to Rev. Father Daniel Routhier of Corbeil, as “personal manager” of the family. Mr. and Mrs. Dionne already have five other children.
Efforts to defeat the contract have been under way up North, but with no success until now. The Children’s Aid Society found itself unable to step in, since there was no evidence of neglect, and finally W. H. Anderson, Red Cross chief in the North, personally brought the problem to the Attorney General. Lightning action brought appointment of the guardians who consist of Mr. Anderson, Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe of Callander, who has been in charge of the babies since birth, Kenneth Morrison, Callander Merchant, and Oliver Dionne, grandfather of the quintuplets. They now have charge of the babies and can and will manage their well-being going forward, starting with the prevention of their removal to Chicago.
“If exploiters from American cities come to Canada to pull off this sort of racket, they need not expect the Attorney-General’s office or the courts to stand idly by,” Roebuck said. “Lives of children are of bigger concern in Canada than the profits of a vaudeville troupe who are playing with the lives of defenceless infants in the name of money.”