The Quintland Sisters(68)
All my love, Ivy
April 21, 1938
It was so wonderful to hear Ivy’s voice. I think she’s picked up a slight American inflection with all the time she’s spent down there, but she is still Ivy through and through. Ivy’s big news: she and Fred have decided to have a private wedding this July, just the two of them, the priest, and her father. Both of Fred’s parents have passed. She says there is simply too much publicity around their romance: The nurse and the photographer to the Dionne Quints! So I will not be a bridesmaid after all, and I’m relieved, it’s true. It’s a credit to Ivy that she asked me in the first place, knowing that someone with a face like mine in her wedding party might be a distraction. So I’ll glide along a little bit longer, it seems, keeping myself to myself.
Ivy told me several astonishing things I didn’t know about M. Dionne and Dr. Dafoe—much of it happening right under my nose. Fred hears things from Keith Munro, his old colleague from the Star who has for some time been in charge of overseeing the bookkeeping for the quintuplets’ fund—the butter and egg man, George calls him. I hardly know how to write about this, it’s so confusing and sensational. Much of it sounds like it’s been lifted from a Hollywood gossip column—too salacious, somehow, for me to want to put it down in print. But the other part of it could very much come home to roost with me.
Apparently Mr. Munro told Fred, who told Ivy, that M. Dionne’s lawyer wishes to review all of the incoming and outgoing payments for advertising contracts. So far Dr. Dafoe has refused, but Ivy believes M. Dionne will get his way. I already feel, very keenly, that M. Dionne has not forgiven me and my “art” for fouling his lawsuit over the corn syrup. I’m not sure what he’ll do when he learns that my paintings are actually now being used to boost the girls’ trust fund and, specifically, that I’m being handsomely paid.
Of course Ivy wanted to hear all about the girls, although she went on a bit about their isolation and their public-private life, as she calls it, plus all of the changes on staff. She thinks all this will have lasting ill effects on the girls. I reminded her that, despite my repugnance for what Dr. Blatz and his scientists have done, their work does prove that the girls are happy and healthy.
“If they’re happy and healthy, Em, what on earth are they doing still living in that hospital? All the more reason for Quintland to shut its doors and for you to get on with your own life.”
Afterward I kept thinking about all the things Ivy had said and all the nurses who have come and gone. How Ivy herself has moved on too. It’s hard to get her words out of my mind, and I have no one with whom to discuss this. Perhaps I’ll write to Lewis.
April 22, 1938 (Toronto Star)
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DR. DAFOE CHALLENGES DIONNE AND ATTORNEY PROVE THEIR CHARGES
Papa Has Six Expensive Cars in 18 Months, Doctor Says
CALLANDER, Ontario—Dr. Allan R. Dafoe, physician to the Dionne quintuplets, openly challenged Oliva Dionne and Attorney Henri St. Jacques, of Ottawa, to prove that he is wasting the babies’ money and alienating their affections towards their parents.
In a declaration containing separate complaints against Dr. Dafoe, St. Jacques charged the health of the quintuplets had been impaired to satisfy Dr. Dafoe’s determination to please tourists, that they had been forced to learn English before mastering French, that Dr. Dafoe had been guilty of wanton waste of the children’s money to assure himself of an elaborate headquarters and management staff, and that Dr. Dafoe had alienated the children’s affections for their parents. St. Jacques is demanding a government probe of the guardians’ activities.
Dr. Dafoe today countered that a former teacher and former nurse at the Dafoe hospital are behind the demands for a probe of his care of the quintuplets and the administration of their affairs. He says the two women, after they were discharged, talked with the girls’ father and sowed these latest seeds of discontent. He added that M. Dionne had been invited to attend the meeting where the discharge of the two nurses was discussed, but he did not attend.
Dr. Dafoe revealed that the five babies, now four years old, have $600,000 in the bank in their own names, after payment of all expenses for the hospital and the administration and the care of them.
“Mr. Dionne is doing very well for himself,” Dr. Dafoe added. “We do not charge admission for visitors to see the children. He is the one, the only one, who benefits from the tourists because his shop of trinkets is located right across the street.
“Mr. Dionne has done so well that he has six expensive automobiles in a year and a half. He trades his cars about once every two months. He has a beautiful car now.”
Dr. Dafoe revealed that he had personally seen to it that Mr. and Mrs. Dionne’s income from contracts signed on behalf of the children had been increased from $100 a month to $300 a month since the birth of the last Dionne baby only three weeks ago.
Mr. St. Jacques, the Dionnes’ lawyer, has declared that, through the request to Attorney General Conant, Mr. Dionne hoped to regain custody of his children and control their education. Reinstatement of Miss Jacqueline No?l, nurse, and Miss Claire Tremblay, teacher, recently dismissed from the Dafoe nursery, and a curb on “extravagance” in the management of the Quints’ business affairs also will be sought in the probe, St. Jacques said.