Family secrets

It was only on the 68th anniversary of the Dionne Quints' births that I learned of the passing of the alleged oldest Quint, Yvonne, a cancer victim, on June 23, 2001. While a bit baffled over how such an event could have escaped my notice for nearly a year, I still stand by most of what I said in my previous review, although I realize that monetary compensation may not mean as much to the sisters now. In earlier times, the death of one of these sisters might have been front page news. But perhaps the fact that Yvonne's passing was apparently an obscure news item, at least in the town where I live, is a sign that the sisters have finally acheived the level of privacy that they have so long desired.

I read this book during the past year. I found it to be much more revealing than their 1960s account of their lives, written with James Brough. In "We Were Five", the four remaining Quintuplets used the real names of their siblings, but neglected to come foreward with the charges of sexual abuse leveled at their father in this newer account. The church officials who could have helped them turned their backs on them, telling them to "submit", and deciding that as long as their father gave monetary support to the Church, he was being a good Catholic. At a time when there was little if any separation of Church and State where the French Canadian government was concerned, there were many other children who experienced the same indignities. It is good that the Dionnes have spoken out on their behalf. I'm glad that shortly after this account was published, that Yvonne, Annette, and Cecile were finally given $2.8 million dollars in compensation by the Ontario Government. But if there is any real justice, Ontario should be paying them annuity. After all, they didn't ask to become the saviors of Ontario during the Depression, and they only ended up as such by accident of being born Quintuplets and subsequent government manipulation.The Ontario Government made $500 million off of "Quintland" during the thirties. Caged and exploited for the first years of their lives, and tended to by Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, they were eventually reunited with their parents and siblings after lengthy and strenuous custody battles. But while Oliva Dionne may have won the physical custody of his daughters, the loyalties of the three surviving sisters ultimately lie firmly with the Doctor who treated them with more dignity than their parents. While it is well that these sisters, whose lives I have followed since I was a kid myself, have been compensated, I hope their siblings can make peace with them, although they shouldn't be entitled to their sisters' reward money after the way they treated them. Due to the times in which they were born, they aroused more public interest than they might have in a time of more affluence, and were led on a nightmarish odyssey that included experimentation, exploitation, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, failed marriages, and the early deaths of the two youngest Quintuplets, Emilie, and Marie in 1954 and 1970 respectively. Their parents will have to answer for their sins in another lifetime, since they are both deceased. But when the three surviving Quintuplets sent a word of warning to the parents of the McCaughey Septuplets about not letting their children suffer the indignities that they did, my respect for them was renewed. I wish these three remarkable ladies all the best in their remaining years. Their story, so far, as had as fair an outcome as could have been expected. As their mother once said to an American auidience years ago during a vaudeville act, "Dieu Beniesse".--God bless you, Yvonne, Annette, and Cecile.

How strong these women are for overcoming the demons of thier past. I admire thier courage to let the world know what life was really like behind those cold gates.

This is the true story of the Dionne quintuplets and what their sad lives were really like. Removed from their family and raised according to "modern, scientific" standards, their physical needs were met but their emotional needs were cruelly neglected. Their parents fought the Canadian government for years to regain custody of the girls, until they became simply objects that their father needed to control for his own loss of ego. Finally re-united with their family, they become unpaid servants and no one in the family can relate to them, nor they to the family. Their father's need to control them and their money, and finally getting that control, is a classical set-up for him to sexually abuse them. No fatherly bond had developed. They made millions of dollars for the Canadian government and recieved very little of it in the end. this is an extremely sad and unusual story told by the main characters in it.