The Quintland Sisters(51)
I didn’t know what to think, not about the girls and their trust fund. But what was dawning on me at that very moment was that my art, something I myself had painted with no help from anyone else, was going to be seen by the wider world. Something I had created would help my girls.
“Will it go in magazines, Dr. Dafoe?” I asked.
“Indeed.” He nodded. “It is so beautiful in color, is it not? It would be a shame to have it be seen only in black and white.”
He must have read my mind, which I am grateful for, because he said: “The Curtiss Candy Company is paying no small sum for the opportunity to have our girls endorse their candy bar, Emma. And a portion of that revenue will be paid to you for your work.”
He stood and started collecting the pictures from the table, carefully putting pieces of tissue paper between them and returning behind the wall to wherever it was he was storing them.
“How much will they pay?” I managed to croak out when he returned, his pipe in the corner of his mouth. It was hard for me to imagine what amount of money this painting would be worth. I would like to ask someone, Fred maybe, or perhaps Mrs. Fangel.
“And Mrs. Fangel, what will she say?”
Dr. Dafoe took his pipe out of his mouth. “I expect she’ll be pleased for you. She thinks of you as a student.”
“So she knows?” I repeated.
“She will soon,” he said.
It was only later that I realized he hadn’t answered my question about how much money I was to be paid. I will talk to Fred when he’s back from New York. And I will write to Ivy to tell her the news.
May 22, 1937 (Toronto Star)
* * *
THREE YEARS OLD FRIDAY QUINTS WORTH $861,148
CALLANDER, Ontario—Impish young capitalists with the world at their feet and a future no one can predict, the Dionne quintuplets toddled on today toward their third birthday, the wonder babies of the universe.
They will be three years old next Friday, May 28—these babies who were grudgingly given a million to one chance to live.
It will be just another 24 hours in the lives of the Quints with little to distinguish it from the birthdays they already have celebrated for newspapers and motion picture photographers. They may be urged to chatter into a microphone for an international broadcast and perhaps thousands will visit them, but that won’t make up an unusual day for the Quints.
But with the coming of their fourth year serious efforts will be started to educate the children now worth almost $1,000,000. Now they have $573,765 in cash or bonds and money due them under 24 contracts will bring that to $861,148. In the past year their wealth has increased by about $300,000.
Without even trying, Cécile, Marie, Annette, émilie, and Yvonne (TOP LEFT TO RIGHT) have enriched the whole Callander district, as well as made a fortune for themselves. A screen of trees (SECOND ROW LEFT) has been planted outside the nursery this spring to keep them less conscious of the crowds. Oliva Dionne, the quintuplets’ father, has recently replaced the porch roof and put new sides on the humble home that was the quintuplets’ birthplace (SECOND ROW RIGHT). Tourists will find a new straight road through the bush from Callander to Dafoe hospital before the summer is out. Pictured here, part of the 100 men working on the new highway are shown either side of the old winding road.
Used with permission.
May 23, 1937
Miss Emma Trimpany Dafoe Hospital and Nursery Callander, ON
Dear Em,
That’s extraordinary news about your painting, I’m so proud of you. You must insist on a reasonable payment, and you must have it paid directly into that account set up for you earlier.
I’m enjoying my time in the southern states; their ways are certainly different from the North, although they seem equally interested in hearing about my time in Quintland. Everyone here calls it that, not the Dafoe nursery or the Dafoe hospital. It makes it seem more exotic, I suppose.
Fred and I have finally set a tentative date for the wedding for next summer. Any longer and I think my father would need to be institutionalized. We are thinking late July, and we will likely have it in Toronto. You must set the last two weeks aside, okay? That’s because I’m insisting you be my bridesmaid. Don’t try to get out of it with your customary protests about your birthmark; I won’t hear of it. I’m coming home for a few days next month and I will tell you about everything then.
All my love, and give a special birthday hug to each of the babies from me.
Ivy
June 5, 1937
Father’s fiftieth birthday. Dr. Dafoe continues to be very worried about kidnappers, believing even the nurses may be at risk, so he arranged for the Cartwrights to take me into Callander tonight. Father and son pulled up to the rear door of the nursery a little after five in the evening. Lewis seemed to have lost his tongue again, although he smiled broadly and tipped his hat before hoisting himself up into the flat bed of the truck, leaving the passenger seat for me. Lewis has many of the same mannerisms I do, I realize, that of ducking his head and turning his face from view.
I thanked them for waiting for me as they surely must have finished delivering their second load of Quint-stones shortly after the public viewing ended at 3:30, but Mr. Cartwright senior merely shook his head, all but scolding me for intimating that I might have walked the distance into town.