The Quintland Sisters(20)
Ivy carried Yvonne, of course, and Dr. Dafoe, Marie, still the smallest and frailest of the five. I was expecting to carry émilie, whom Ivy always refers to as mine. At the last minute, however, Dr. Dafoe asked me to hand émilie to Lauren and sent me across to the new hospital to help the police constables keep reporters and well-wishers at bay. Lauren had never even held one of the babies before! Then I thought of the newspapermen and Mr. Davis with his cameras, and how this short journey across the street would be captured for all the world in photos and print. Lauren is quite attractive, in her way.
Dr. Dafoe had me take the blankets back to the Dionne farm: he wants everything from our makeshift nursery—all of the babies’ clothes and bibs and diapers and towels, even the new blankets we’d used to ferry the babies across the road—incinerated on the Dionne property. It seems such a terrible waste. Most families could never dream of having all of this for their own babies.
I walked back to the farmhouse and stole quietly up the steps of the covered porch, then set down the blankets, folded, by the kitchen door. Through the mesh screen I took a last glimpse at the kitchen: the wide plank shelving covering two walls; the big ceramic sink with working faucets, wide enough to bathe the babies; the bulky woodstove brooding in the corner; and the five sleeping cots, impossibly small, now earmarked for the bonfire.
In the dim light, made murkier still by the darkening sky outside, I almost failed to spy Mme. Dionne seated at the table, her broad shoulders heaving, her head in her hands.
September 23, 1934
DR. DAFOE HAS worked a miracle once again. I’m sorry I doubted him, even for a second. The babies’ fevers are gone and their color is back. On Dr. Dafoe’s orders they are spending several hours sleeping on the side porch in the full sun, oblivious to the birds chirping over their good health and the steady traffic pulling up beyond the front gate. A fence is being built that will keep any nosy parkers from slipping around the back. What’s more, the Lindbergh baby’s kidnapper has been captured in New York City! I’m so relieved I could cry.
My classes start tomorrow. I held émilie for as long as I possibly could tonight before heading out to St. Joseph’s Hospital. For the next eight months the nurses’ dormitory will be my home. I’ll be back, I promised little émilie. Wait for me.
October 5, 1934 (Ottawa Citizen)
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PUBLIC NOTICE TO THE READERS OF THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
The St. Lawrence Starch Company takes this occasion to acknowledge publicly the receipt of the above letter and is proud of this expression of confidence in its product. The company is particularly gratified at the part Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup has played in this world-famous case.
Mr. W. T. Gray, Vice President
St. Lawrence Starch Co. Ltd.
September 17, 1934
Mr. W. T. Gray, Vice President St. Lawrence Starch Co. Ltd.
Port Credit, Ontario
Dear Mr. Gray:
I have made inquiries, and I find that Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup was the Corn Syrup used as a carbohydrate milk modifier in the first feedings of the Dionne quintuplets by Dr. Dafoe, and I have pleasure in advising you that full permission is granted to the St. Lawrence Starch Co. Ltd., the manufacturers of this brand of Corn Syrup, to advertise this fact.
It is also understood that should Corn Syrup be included in the diet of the Dionne quintuplets again, that Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup will be used, by reason of the success attending its use to date.
In view of the above facts, and advertising permission granted, the Guardians of the Dionne Quintuplet Fund agree that no other brand of Corn Syrup will be similarly endorsed, as it is understood that this letter gives to the St. Lawrence Starch Co. Ltd., Port Credit, Ontario, exclusive Corn Syrup advertising rights as pertaining to the use of this food in the first feedings of the Dionne quintuplets and also its future use should the attending physicians so decide.
Yours very truly,
Dr. Allan R. Dafoe
Official Guardian
Used with permission.
October 9, 1934
Miss Emma Trimpany Nurses Dormitory
St. Joseph’s Hospital North Bay, ON
My dear Emma,
What on earth are they teaching you up there? Haven’t you told them you’d learn heaps more if you just came and helped us at the Dafoe Hospital? I miss you terribly and I know the babies do too. émilie has started kicking at me when I try to change her nappy and makes this ominous smacking sound with her lips.
They are all doing so well. You would scarcely think they are the same babies as those little blue-green corpses we had to whisk across the street last month. All of them have put on at least seven pounds and are gobbling down their milk as if they’ve been wandering the desert and this is the first liquid they’ve encountered. They are smiley and strong, and their hair is really coming in thick again. I can’t tell you what a difference it makes to be in this beautiful bright hospital, without Mme. Dionne barging in with her holy water and prayers, or M. Dionne slinking all over the place and scaring the daylights out of us.
Captain de K says you will be coming here for some of your practicum soon, but surely you could come by on the weekends as well. The weekend after next, the newsreels are coming to make a short film about the quintuplets and the Dionne family.
The older Dionne children have taken to standing at the fence to watch all of the furniture and supplies being loaded into the hospital. We had our first big delivery of groceries for the staff larder, and I can tell you, my eyes were popping out of my head, so you can imagine what those children must have thought. Eggs, cheese, buttermilk, and cream; sacks of flour, oats, beans, coffee, and sugar; sides of pork, mutton, and beef; plus barrels of carrots, potatoes, parsnips, and turnips, and a crate of apples that will keep us in fruit until Christmas, I’d think.