The Quintland Sisters(55)
What the Dionne girls would want is normalcy. Normal risks, normal adventures, games with other children, going to school like other children, flirtations in the moonlight, wifehood, motherhood, perhaps, if their imaginations ran that far, some kind of career. But they will not have these things, unless, in time, the great scientific experiment of rearing them under cover is dropped and they are allowed to go their separate ways.
One does not envy Dr. Dafoe—or anyone else connected with the case—his responsibility. The first objective must be to keep them alive, but close to that is the desire to make their lives as happy and normal as possible. If they are made a sideshow to interest and amuse the public something precious is sacrificed. If they are allowed to become five individuals, instead of a mass movement known as the Dionne Quintuplets, there may be hope that other members of the human race, despite dictators and demagogues, may also achieve the right to be their individual selves.
From The New York Times, August 29, 1937 ? The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
September 1, 1937
Mr. Sinclair spends time with the quintuplets every day, to their delight. And ours, I suppose. He is unfailingly gallant with all of the nurses and staff and a natty dresser, but also has a rather wicked sense of humor that is keeping us all amused. Ivy would like him. He livens the place up like she did. Maybe it is because he is also a city man, from Toronto, but he strikes me as a younger Fred. And, like Fred, he doesn’t look right through me. So many physicians, scientists, politicians, artists, film stars, and dignitaries have passed through these halls without registering my existence, my invisibility intact. George—Mr. Sinclair—has never made a comment about my face and I’ve never caught him looking at my birthmark. He even holds my eye when he speaks with me, something Dr. Dafoe himself has a hard time doing. He has quite nice eyes, actually. Deep brown, with long dark lashes.
George has to write three newspaper columns each week about the daily lives of the quintuplets. These are Dr. Dafoe’s columns, but, according to George, the doctor scarcely even looks them over and seldom suggests any changes. We’ll be breakfasting with the girls and George will be pacing up and down the corridor outside, his fine shoes clattering. Then, as soon as we’re finished, he’ll needle us with questions. “How often do the girls eat scrambled eggs? What about hard-boiled eggs? How many?” If he wasn’t so polite, he’d get on our nerves, but if anything his questions amuse us.
A few days later, right as rain, “Dr. Dafoe’s Column on the Quintuplets and the Care of Your Children” will devote several inches to the health benefits of eggs for toddlers. Today George was hot on the case of potty training. Dr. Blatz believes the toilet schedule has been successful, so starting next week the girls will wear diapers only at night. I’m expecting we’ll be doing a lot of laundry. But George is already poring over the past twelve months of the girls’ “toilet records” and asking us about bowel movements and hydration. I’m sure most men would find this terribly embarrassing, but not George. Dr. Dafoe also has him reviewing the major Canadian and American dailies for any articles about the quintuplets. Today I got up the nerve to mention that I’ve been keeping up a scrapbook that started at the girls’ birth, and he is kindly providing me with anything he comes across.
In the afternoons, he tends to sequester himself at his desk in Dr. Dafoe’s office to tackle the mail, and we might not see him for several hours. But we can usually count on him to reappear later in the afternoon to regale us with stories of the latest lunatic advice to arrive by post—the necessity of goat’s milk for healthy toenails or coffee rinses for shinier hair. Not all of the letters are funny, of course. The doctor and the quintuplets receive mail from cities and countries I’ve never heard of, where people live in quite different circumstances than we do here. It’s astonishing that people, no matter how hard their lives, might take the time to write to our little nursery, to tell us how comforted they are knowing that the girls are healthy and safe.
September 10, 1937
IVY VISITED TODAY. She looked beautiful in a white dress covered in butterflies of every hue, caped sleeves, a full skirt to just below the knee. The girls quickly abandoned their games to dash over and examine this latest princess-visitor, pointing at the fabric and exclaiming at the colors. They were so sunny and friendly, it took both Ivy and me a moment to realize they didn’t recognize her. They were simply being welcoming. After their interest in her dress, purse, and hat had abated, they bumbled off again, more or less forgetting that they had a visitor at all.
Tears welled up in Ivy’s beautiful big eyes, and she started fumbling through her bag for a handkerchief. I put my arm around her and tried to explain that they get so many glamorous visitors these days and had been quite ill recently so were still a bit under the weather. Ivy couldn’t be consoled. Sweet Annette, who is truly the most maternal of the group, noticed Ivy dabbing at her eyes and returned, her own eyes pooling and her arms outstretched, offering a hug. “No ba-ba-bah,” the little one said. This was too much for Ivy, who crouched down and permitted Annette to reach around her pretty dress and stroke her gently on her back, as she’d seen us do with her sisters, repeating herself in a soothing burble. “No ba-ba-bah.”