The Five of Us Trivia Quiz

Answer: Canada

Annette, Marie, Yvonne, Emilie and Cecile were born near Corbeil, which is outside Callender, Ontario, Canada. On May 28, 1934, Elzire and Oliva Dionne welcomed the birth of their sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth children. The birth took place in an old farmhouse that has been described by one of the persons present as having, "decent dishes, no screens, doors or cleanliness, and mosquitoes at night & flies in the day".

The biggest babies were delivered first, according to the midwives. Beside the fact that their exact birth order was not recorded, their height and weight were also not noted.

Answer: Prematurity

Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe delivered the girls. They developed from one single fertilized egg. This egg divided to produce two more eggs. These two eggs then divided again, now producing four babies. One of these four eggs divided once more to produce the five eggs that would become Annette, Yvonne, Marie, Emilie and Cecile. Annette and Yvonne shared one embryonic sac; Marie and Emilie shared another. Cecile was by herself in a sac although there has been speculation that there may have been a sixth baby whom Mrs. Dionne miscarried early in the pregnancy. Dr. Dafoe reportedly joked with the editor of the local newspaper when he asked if placing a birth announcement for five children would cost more than for one.

Answer: Chicago, Illinois

Oliva Dionne received an advanced fee of $100.00 for signing the agreement to have his daughters appear at the fair in Chicago with a guarantee of $250.00 for each weekly appearance. They were supposed to appear in July of 1934 when they were only two months old. Dr. Dafoe supposedly gave his blessing to the plan since he felt that the quintuplets wouldn't live too long. Perceiving that their parents were only using the quints to make money, the Ontario government under Mitchell Hepburn removed custody of the quintuplets from their parents.

Hepburn's government felt they needed to take control of the girls "to protect the infants' fragile health". The "Dionne quintuplets Guardianship Act" was originally designed to last two years; it lasted for nine. Ironically, the government of Canada made billions of dollars from their own exploitation of the Dionne quintuplets.

Answer: Yvonne Leroux

The Dionne quintuplets revealed in the book that they felt they would not have survived if it hadn't been for Nurse Yvonne Leroux. Nurse Leroux wrote in her diary describing the quints as, "Five premature, scrawny, rickety, hungry mites - five in a butcher's basket-blankets under & blankets over, shirting and sheeting for wraps." Yvonne Leroux began working for Dr. Dafoe in 1934.

She continued to nurse the quints after they were removed from their parents' control. She met Fred Davis, a reporter and official photographer of the Dionne quintuplets for the North Bay newspaper. Yvonne kept a day-by-day diary of the girls and their lives while she was their nurse. Yvonne Leroux left her position with the quintuplets to marry Mr. Davis in 1936.

Answer: False

Three sons were born including Oliva Jr. (1936), Victor (1938) and Claude (1946). The children older than the quints were Ernest (1926), Rose-Marie (1928), Therese (1929), Daniel (1932) and Pauline (1933). As Pauline was born only 11 months before the quintuplets, she has often been referred to as "the sixth quint".

She was, incidentally, the only blonde in her family. A sixth son, Leo, was born but died of pneumonia shortly after his birth.

Answer: The Miracle Babies

"Five of a Kind" (1938) tells a fictional tale of the "Wyatt Quintuplets" who were played by the Dionne quintuplets. The movie also stars Claire Trevor, Cesar Romero and Jean Hersholt as Dr. John Luke, a character created in Dr. Dafoe's likeness. Apparently, Jean Hersholt's performance was so compelling on that movie, another movie, "The Country Doctor" (1936) was released with the Dionne girls playing the "Wyatts" again.

"Land of the Quintuplets" (1942) was a documentary short film about the Dionnes narrated by James A. Fitzpatrick. There was a movie called "The Miracle Baby" (1923) that starred Harry Carey, Sr. but never one released called "The Miracle Babies" starring the Dionne quintuplets.

Answer: Quintuplets' Fund

The Quintuplets' Fund contained money earned by the Dionne quintuplets for their appearances in movies, commercial endorsements, public viewings of their growing up, etc. Although they earned the money, they did not see any of this money until they sued the Canadian government.

At the age of four months, the custody of the Dionne quintuplets transferred from their parents to the Canadian government. In 1943, Emilie, Yvonne, Marie, Cecile and Annette returned to live with their parents and siblings in what was called "The Big House". In contrast to the house in which they had been born, the new house was a twenty room mansion made out of yellow brick. The new house had hot water, electricity and telephones. The Dafoe Nursery across the road where the girls had spent the first nine years of their lives became a schoolhouse for the quintuplets as well as their sister, Pauline and ten girls from the area who were scrupulously chosen. The nursery eventually became a convent.

Mr. Dionne continued to keep his daughters in the spotlight. They continued (not by choice) to dress alike. They had little chance to get to know either of their parents or their brothers and sisters as they continued to make appearances for which their father received money.

Answer: Apple computers

Dr. Alan Roy Dafoe became an overnight sensation once the world learned that he had delivered five identical babies at once. He also shared guardianship of the girls after the Ontario government stepped in and took them away from their parents. Dr. Dafoe did not practice much medicine after the Dionne quintuplets were born.

He earned money as one of their guardians, had multiple commercial endorsements and also earned money through speaking engagements. Dr. Dafoe was made an Officer of The Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his work with the quintuplets.

At the age of 60 he died of pneumonia precipitated by cancer.

Answer: They could not run for political office.

Although none of the quintuplets ran for political office, this was not something that was "forbidden" for them to do. Some of these superstitions, I suspect, sprang from the fact that the Dionne quintuplets were the first surviving quintuplets ever to be born. The fact that they were also identical also must have created some doubt in people's minds about their ability to marry and to have children successfully. And I am sure that these superstitions were also used to help keep the girls in line.

Emilie and Yvonne never married and never had children of their own.

In 1957 Cecile married Philippe Langlois and had five children including one set of twins. However, one of the twins died of kidney cancer when he was less than a year old. Cecile and Philippe divorced two years after this tragic event.

Marie married Florian Houle in 1958; he was fourteen years older than she. They had two children and then divorced. Marie opened a flower shop which was a financial disaster since she had never been taught any money management skills.

Annette married Germain Allard in 1957, a union that produced four children. They would eventually divorce as well in the early 1970s.

Answer: Religious Life

All of the Dionne quintuplets entered the Sisters of Assumption convent at Nicholet, Quebec in 1952 as postulates, studying to become nuns.

Shortly after Emilie's death in 1954, Annette, Yvonne and Cecile left the convent. Marie dropped out as well, tried to return but eventually quit because of poor health. Yvonne re-entered the convent, but frequently left and then returned. She eventually become a nun, but stopped being one in later life.

Answer: True

After going with her sisters to the convent in Nicholet, Quebec in 1952, Cecile, too, dropped out in 1954 after Emilie's death. She entered the Hospital Notre Dame Esperance with her sister Yvonne to study nursing.

Yvonne eventually went back to the convent. Cecile also dropped out of nursing school. She married in 1957; the marriage (like Annette's and Marie's) ended in divorce.

Answer: peach

They not only had an individual color, they also had a symbol.
Annette-red and a maple leaf
Marie-blue and a teddy bear
Yvonne-pink and a bluebird
Cecile-green and a turkey
Emilie-white and a tulip

In their book, "We Were Five" (1964) the four remaining Dionne quintuplets revealed that the nurses that cared for them often substituted one baby for another during public viewings since they were identical and no one would know the difference. Talk about identity confusion!

Answer: True

The Dionne quintuplets, while wards of the Canadian government and under the strict care of Dr. Dafoe, were raised in a sterile environment both physically and emotionally. From 1934-1943, the Dionne quintuplets went out to "play" in thirty minute sessions. These "play sessions" were scheduled two or three times a day, seven days a week. The viewing area was surrounded by a seven-foot fence resembling a prison and was guarded by policemen in uniform. One hundred people at a time were allowed in to watch the girls swing, ride their tricycles or play with their dolls. No cameras were allowed, as there was only one official photographer, Fred Davis. Even Mr. Dionne was not allowed to photograph his own children.

Other tourist venues in the area included a gasoline station owned by the girls' uncle Leon Dionne featuring five gas pumps labeled Annette, Emilie, Cecile, Marie and Yvonne. Tourists could visit Madam LeGros and Madame LeBelle who were the midwives who attended the birth. They proudly displayed the basket in which the girls were first placed after their birth. The quints' father, Oliva Dionne, claimed that the rocks off his farm increased fertility; he sold them for fifty cents apiece. Dr. Dafoe's house was identified by a brass plaque.

Answer: Emilie

For years, Emilie suffered from epilepsy although this fact was concealed from most of the world. It was, in fact, the Dionne family's deep, dark secret. Emilie had joined the St. Agatha convent north of Montreal where she hoped to become a nun. On the evening of August 6, 1954, she had a seizure and suffocated in her pillow as she was unable to raise her face. Another nun had been assigned to watch Emilie while she slept to ensure that she was safe, but the nun had gone to Mass. Emilie was only twenty years old when she died.

Emilie was the only one of the quints to be left-handed. Her hair curled clock-wise in contrast to her four sisters who were all right-handed and whose hair curled counter clock-wise.

Answer: Yvonne

Yvonne died on June 23, 2001, at the age of 67.

Marie died of an apparent blood clot of the brain in Montreal on February 27, 1970 at the age of 35. There was some speculation when she first died that she had committed suicide since she had spoken about it several times before her death. At the end of her life, she was extremely depressed and prone to drinking too much alcohol. Marie was found dead in an apartment where she lived alone; she had been dead for several days before she was found. Of all the Dionne quintuplets, Marie never got over having to live her first years of her life in a fish bowl.

The remaining Dionne quintuplets (Annette and Cecile) shared a home together in Montreal, living on the monetary settlement they eventually received from the Ontario government. They preferred to be called the Dionne sisters instead of the Dionne quintuplets.