The Quintland Sisters(36)

Back at the nursery, Dr. Dafoe summoned me to his office to tell me that he has arranged for a special account to be opened in my name and that the stipend I receive for my artwork for Mrs. Fangel is being paid directly into that, rather than being added to my regular pay. I suspect Dr. Dafoe knows that I’m sending my entire salary home to Mother and Father, who need every little bit for baby Edith, so the fact that he is keeping this money separate has given me mixed feelings. Of course, I can do with it as I please, he said. “But if these times have taught us anything, it’s that we should all have something set aside for a rainy day.”

I can’t think what rainy days he envisions in my future. But for now, this is my little secret, perhaps the first real secret I’ve had from my parents. It makes me feel older than my years.

Perhaps I should see about having Mme. Legros and Mme. Lebel sell some of my paintings in their shop. I bet they’d sell like hotcakes.





July 2, 1936 (Toronto Star)



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PUBLIC MAY NOW SEE QUINTUPLETS BUT NOT QUINTUPLETS THE PUBLIC

NORTH BAY, Ontario—For the first time yesterday the quintuplets’ new playground at Callander with its surrounding circular passageway to enable the public to view the children without the children themselves being aware of the fact was opened for public inspection.

Dr. A. R. Dafoe has been responsible for the construction of this unique children’s recreation field.

In order to prevent the children being disturbed by the footsteps of visitors, the floor of the passageway will be covered with felt, over which will be laid cork linoleum. Inside the aluminium-sprayed wire screen will be sheets of glass to prevent the voices of the visitors carrying to the children.

This latter precaution was decided upon by Dr. Dafoe yesterday afternoon after he had carefully observed sound and visibility conditions when the first visitors were admitted. In conjunction with the playground and opening out from the passageway itself will be a private boudoir for the babies where they can be dressed and dried after their activities in the wading pool.

Used with permission.





July 8, 1936

Miss Emma Trimpany Dafoe Hospital and Nursery Callander, ON

Dear Miss Trimpany, My father and I are hoping you might consider raising a delicate issue with Dr. Dafoe on our behalf. We’ve written to him ourselves, but I appreciate the good doctor receives a bushel of mail every day and our letter may have been lost in the shuffle.

My father and I are now making two, sometimes three trips per day between the nursery and the lakeshore—I fear we are in danger of emptying Lake Nipissing’s beaches of stones once and for all. Indeed, we may be soon dredging the lake. It sounds improbable, but let me tell you: finding pebbles to fill the souvenir buckets at the Dafoe Nursery is becoming a considerable challenge. Our suggestion might be a sign reminding tourists to please restrict themselves to a single Quint-stone as a memento of their visit. In the past two years we estimate we have brought one and a half thousand tons of rocks and pebbles to the nursery and they have all disappeared into the pockets and purses of your many visitors, who take them God knows where. If I were Lake Nipissing, I might feel like someone was making off with the walls of my house. If the lake, set free, decides to take off after her stones, this will be a thirsty part of the world indeed.

I’m making light of the matter, but would you consider raising this issue? Joking aside, my father and I feel the public should be urged to exercise some restraint with regard to the fertility stones, if not to spare the world a population spike, then at least to keep us from digging a new quarry. Maybe the hospital would consider charging a small fee per pebble that would help keep some of these stones in our neck of the woods for future generations.

Yours respectfully, Lewis Cartwright





25 Poplar Road


Callander, ON





July 10, 1936

We are melting. For the third day in a row the heat has soared above one hundred degrees. We’ve finished choking down a cold supper for which none of us had the slightest appetite. I am too hot to work on my sketches; the pastels slip from my fingers like sticks of butter.

Now that the sun is down, we’ve got the windows thrown open and fans whirring throughout the nursery to try to stir the soupy air. Nothing seems to help. The girls are cranky and restless and everything is Non-non-non-non, accompanied by much foot stamping and head shaking. Today, they peeled their dresses over their heads the minute we got them back inside from their outdoor play, and we resigned ourselves to letting them scamper around naked. We are trying to keep them cool with ice, constant fluids, and plenty of cool baths, but both Cécile and Annette have terrible heat rash and the others will no doubt get it too. Until this heat wave breaks, I think all of us will be crabbier than usual. Dr. Dafoe has wisely canceled the afternoon showing in the new playground until the heat abates: he believes it is simply not safe to have the girls outside. Even in the morning showings, we’ve had several ladies faint in the observation corridor, where it is hot as a furnace, with not a whisper of a draft. It’s got plenty of windows, of course, but they are useless in terms of fresh air, since they all look out onto the girls’ playground and can’t be opened. Plus they are coated in a dark mesh, which makes them even hotter.

It took twice as long today to get the girls fed and dressed and their hair brushed and curled, only to have them look wilted within minutes. Their new playground is in shade for a few hours in the morning but gets very little in the way of a breeze, being surrounded by the walls of the viewing gallery on three sides and the entrance into the private playground and nursery on the other. Its saving grace is a wading pool, which all of the girls adore.