miracle and tragedy of the dionne quintuplets

He kept the babies warm in a wicker basket using hot water bottles and an open oven. Allan Roy Dafoe was present for the birth and did a great job at keeping the baby girls alive. The conditions of the farmhouse, without heat and electricity, were not helping their survival.ĭr. They were barely alive and had serious respiratory problems. Together they weighed only 13 pounds 6 ounces (just over 6 kg). The five baby girls were born two months premature on May 28, 1934, in Corbeil, Ontario. The Dionnes are the only identical quintuplets ever recorded and the first ever known to survive infancy. And why would it? Doctors say that the odds of naturally conceived quintuplets is about one in 55 million, but the odds of identical quintuplets is even more rare. “What will I do with all of these babies?” she reportedly screamed.Įlzire suspected she was carrying twins, but the thought of quintuplets never crossed her mind.

Already a mother of five, the shock of giving birth to five more baby girls – Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecile and Marie – knocked her out for two hours. Nobody could have known, not even Elzire Dionne, that she was going to give birth to quintuplets. The Dionnes also had three sons after the quintuplets: Oliva Jr (1936-2017), Victor (1938-2007), and Claude (1946-2009).

1930), died of pneumonia shortly after birth. Pauline was only eleven months older than the quintuplets. The Dionnes were a French-speaking farming family with five older children, Ernest (1936-1995), Rose Marie (1928-1995), Therese (b.

They lived just outside Corbeil, Ontario, in a farmhouse on unregistered territory. The Dionne family was headed by father Oliva-Edouard (1904-1979) and Elzire Dionne (1909-1986), who married on September 15, 1925. Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia Family: This miracle, plus their baby cuteness, the poverty of their French Canadian parents, and the controversy over their guardianship, made them the top news story of the 1930s. They are the first known quintuplets to survive infancy, and all five of them survived to adulthood. They were born to parents Oliva and Elzire Dionne on May 28, 1934. The Dionne quintuplets gained worldwide attention after their birth in Corbeil, Ontario.

Miracle and tragedy of the dionne quintuplets