The Quintland Sisters(48)
Father had waited up for me, but he didn’t ask me anything either, just showed me to my old room with little Edith. Bless her heart. She is sleeping as sound as a stone, oblivious to my scratching pen.
January 28, 1937
STILL NO WORD from Ivy. She has a woman in Toronto who manages all her mail for her these days. Even my letters go through this secretary now. Or I hope they go through.
February 1937: Daily Routine: Dionne Quintuplets (Age—2 years, 9 months)
Time Activity Secondary Activity Supervisor #
6:30 Toilet
Dressing Orange juice and cod-liver oil
(Play) XX
X
7:00 Washing
Dressing Toilet
(Play) XXX
8:00 Breakfast XX
8:30 Toilet (Play) X
8:45 Prayer (Play) XX
9:00 Dressing
Drink of water (Play) XXX
9:30 Outdoor free play Washing X(X)
10:00 Undressing
Toilet (Play) XX
10:30 Nourishment X
10:40 Music group XX
11:00 Constructive play Washing X
X
11:25 Story group XX
11:35 Relaxation XX
11:45 Dinner XXX
12:15 Toilet Dressing X
12:30 Outdoor sleep (alternate)
2:15 Toilet
Dressing Drink of water X
XXX
X
2:30 Outdoor free play X(X)
3:00 Undressing
Toilet (Play) XX
X
3:30 Nourishment (Play) X
4:00 Bath XX
4:15 Directed play X
5:15 Toilet X
5:20 Story group XX
5:40 Supper XX
6:00 Toilet Dressing XX
XX
6:10 Story group
Drink of water Prayer XX
X
XX
6:30 In bed (Night supervision) XXX
(X)
Blatz, W. E., N. Chant, M. W. Charles, et al. Collected Studies on the Dionne Quintuplets. University of Toronto Studies: Child Development Series. University of Toronto Press, October 1937 (adapted).
February 21, 1937
Miss Emma Trimpany Dafoe Hospital and Nursery Callander, ON
Dear Emma,
I’m sorry! You absolutely deserve to have heard from me sooner, but I came down with a very bad cold after my trip to Toronto last month and am only now on the mend.
I’ve thought about that day in the courtroom so much and what it must have been like for you—it was nerve-racking for me and I’m used to being the center of attention these days. I’m not sure we should ever speak of this again, and this is all I’ll say: I’m proud of you. Truly, the whole world has gone gaga and forgotten that at the center of all this are five perfectly normal girls who by some strange stroke of chance happen to have been born the same day, with the same features. Corn syrup? Baby Ruth? Lysol? All these masses of people flocking to see them? Or worse, the prospect of them moving back in with the dreary Dionnes? Keep them safe, Em. No one can do this better than you.
And now my news. I’m coming to Callander for the day, March 3. I can’t wait to see my baby girls, and of course I can’t wait to see you.
I love you and miss you, Ivy
February 27, 1937
I am the one the girls turn to now. A stubbed toe, a puzzling toy, a masterpiece of finger painting that requires praise and admiration—it’s me they seek out. Nurse No?l is the game master who won’t take no for an answer; Miss Beaulieu is the instructor with the strict rules and plastic smile. Nurse Sylvie Dubois is the latest practical nurse they’ve brought in to help with all the record keeping and measurements—she has not yet earned the girls’ trust, let alone their affection, although she is cheery and pretty. Meanwhile Mme. Dionne has been scarce since the autumn, ever since Nurse Nicolette’s departure, and I haven’t seen M. Dionne since that awful moment in the courtroom. How ridiculous, but also wonderful, that I, who have always insisted I was not cut out for motherhood, have ended up as a de facto mother of five.
My own mother is back up on two feet and I’m out at the nursery full-time again, delighted to be here when the girls wake in the morning and to tuck them in after dusk.
The rules and schedules are more complicated now that we are potty training, according to Dr. Blatz’s methods. Doh-Doh Blah-Blah, the girls call him now, which makes me want to laugh out loud. I need to remember to put that in a letter to Ivy. We still have them in diapers, of course, but they don’t need changing as much as before—not surprising given how many times per day we plunk them on the toilets and tell them to “go.” Cécile has become Miss Beaulieu’s favorite because she has the fewest accidents. Me, I love Cécile for her silly pranks, and for the make-believe flowers she picks for me in the nursery “garden.” What a beautiful bouquet! I’ll say, and when she leans in to give them a pretend sniff, I get to kiss her on her soft head.
Miss Beaulieu does not approve of the kisses.
March 3, 1937
IVY CAME TO the nursery today, her first visit since leaving in December and the first time I’ve seen her since the court case in January. She could stay only a few hours before going back to Toronto, where she is the speaker at a fund-raiser for Havergal College. It wasn’t enough, not for any of us. I’d hoped we’d have time for a quiet word, just the two of us, but in the end that didn’t happen. She seemed to want to spend every moment with the quintuplets, and I understand that, I do.