Canadian quintuplets born to an Ontario farm couple, believed to be the first quints to live more than a few hours and the first to all survive. They were delivered by Dr. Allan Dafoe who saved them with borrowed incubators. Their combined weight was 13 lbs 6 oz.
While they were still babies, the Canadian government took the babies from their impoverished and uneducated parents who already had five kids (with three more to follow) and displayed them in a specially-built theme park called Quintland, to be gawked at by tourists. From six in the morning to six at night, their every minute was scheduled, in a lucrative side show.
When the tourist trade dwindled and they were returned to their family at age nine, the quints claim they were resented by their siblings, beaten by their mom and sexually abused by their dad. When the claims became public in their 1995 biography, “Dionne Quintuplets: Family Secrets,” their siblings issued a statement denying their allegations.
According to recent audits, Ontario netted $350 million in quint-generated tourism revenue. Yet, by the time they came of age, the funds were dissipated on the upkeep of Quintland and its managers. At 18, the girls left home and broke off communication with their parents.
They began to lead separate lives in 1953. Three of the girls studied Home Economics, Cecile became a nurse, Yvonne studied art and Marie entered a convent for less than a year. Annette and Yvone became librarians. All the quints had epilepsy and Emilie died of a seizure on 8/06/1954, shortly before taking her vows to become a nun. Marie, who became a florist, died of a blood clot in 1970. Annette was the first to marry, in October 1957. Cecile married a month later and Marie in 1958. The three women had ten kids in all but all divorced within a few years.
Far from retiring in luxury, the three surviving quints, Cecile, Annette and Yvonne, spent recent years scraping by on Yvonne’s $600 a month librarian pension and sharing Annette’s heavily mortgaged Montreal home. Unworldly about money, at 21 they had easily gone through their trust funds of $119,000 each.
On 3/06/1998, the Canadian government offered the women an apology and $2.8 million in compensation.
On 6/23/2001, Yvonne died of cancer in Montreal, leaving a remaining two of the famous set.
Link to Wikipedia biography