A terrible story of Dion Fifteen: what happened to the most famous girls of Canada
'12.05.2018'
Source: Rambler
In May, the famous five Dion twins would celebrate their 84 anniversary. Canadian girls by their birth brought Canada incredible incomes, but they did not make them happy.
How miracle girls were born
Babies Yvonne, Annette, Cecil, Emily and Marie were born in Ontario and thus caused a sensation: in 1934 it was a miracle that all five identical twins survived childbirth, and even managed to live to adulthood, says Rambler. At the same time, they were born two months before the scheduled date.
After another four months, they were taken away from the family for the care of the state for nine years - according to a special act on custody of the “fives” Dion. The government of Ontario decided to make babies a tourist attraction.
By the way, Elzir’s mother, the girls, later told doctors that when she hatched five girls, she had strange convulsions in her third month of pregnancy, accompanied by strange protein secretions. It is assumed that this was a miscarriage of the sixth fetus. The indirect evidence of this doctor is that at birth Emily and Marie shared a fetal sac, like Annette and Yvon, but Cecile didn’t have a pair. Questions were raised by the fact that all the sisters, except Emily, were right-handed - it was assumed that there should have been another “mirror” baby.
The total weight of all five girls at birth was 6,5 kg, the individual weight of each of them was not recorded.
The news of the miracle girls quickly spread throughout the country. People vividly responded to the fact that babies need help in nursing. They sent baby food to the babies, and one hospital provided the Dion family with two incubators. At this stage, lovers of profit came to the parents of the sisters and invited them to exhibit girls at the world exhibition. Dion's family was pressed, after which they signed a contract, but they came to their senses in time and terminated it. By the way, in those days it was considered normal to put children in incubators for all to see.
How and why the sisters were separated from the family
But the authorities did not want to part with the idea of getting unusual girls at their disposal. Therefore, the Government of Ontario soon decided that the simple farmers Oliva and Elzir, who were already raising five children and subsequently giving birth to three more sons, could not properly take care of the five houses. As a result, the sisters were removed from the family, although, formally, Oliva retained custody over them. But in fact, the children passed under the full authority of Dr. Dapho and two other doctors.
From this point on, the authorities began to create an industry around the babies that would allow them to make money on their unusualness. They built a kindergarten with playgrounds, which in fact were like a zoo, because those who wanted to see unusual girls were invited to watch them for money. The building, which contained the fives, was surrounded by a two-meter barbed wire fence. The sisters were taken to the site two or three times a day for a half-hour walk.
At the same time, experiments were constantly put on them, they were studied and investigated. The sisters were exempted from housework and were trained privately in the same building in which they lived. It was mostly the nurses who cared for them, and the girls had little idea about the outside world. They basically heard tourists, but they did not see (there was glass around the platform, like in interrogation rooms, when only one side is transparent and the other is mirror). Contacts with parents and brothers and sisters were random.
The kids had a tough daily routine. They wore almost the same clothes, but in order to distinguish between their own and other people's things, each of them was “awarded” a personal color and symbol. So, Annette had a red color, and the symbol was a maple leaf, Cecile had green and turkey, Emily had white and tulip, Marie had blue and teddy bears, Yvonne had pink and blue birds.
Every day, around 6 000 people came to see the girls. Nearly 3 000 000 people visited sisters between 1936 and 1943 for years. At the same time, the girls' father turned around and opened a souvenir shop where he sold products dedicated to girls: autographs, photographs, spoons, cups, plates, plates, chocolates, books, postcards and dolls. In addition, he traded stones from his farm, claiming that they possess the magic power of fertility.
The nurses who looked after the girls also opened their souvenir shops. In the end, the fives brought Ontario more than 50 million dollars. Quintland - so called this territory (quint - which means “five”, land - which means “land”) overtook the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in attendance. Among the stars who came to see the sisters were Clark Gable, James Stewart, Bette Davis, Mae West, Amelia Eckhart and others.
Images and images of sisters were used to advertise commercial products, including corn syrup and oats. The babies allowed to increase sales of condensed milk, toothpaste, disinfectants and other products through participation in promotions.
In addition, they were regularly filmed in films. True, the pictures were told in fictional stories that had little to do with reality. For example, films glorified doctors who looked after girls. One of the sisters' tapes was even nominated for an Oscar in 1940.
Why did the parents actually return the daughters to the family
In November 1943, Oliva and Elzier nevertheless won the custody of the girls, after which the family moved to the yellow brick 20-room mansion, the construction of which was paid for from the Five Twins fund. The house had amenities that in those times were considered luxury, for example, a telephone, electricity and hot water.
The “kindergarten,” which exhibited the sisters to the public, was transformed into a school where Yvonne, Cecile, Annette, Marie and Emily graduated with a high school diploma along with ten other girls from the area.
In this case, the relationship with the family of the sisters did not work out. Parents often reproached them for causing the plight of the family, sisters did not receive privileges that other children of the family received, demanded more discipline from them, and punishments were more severe. They were still forced to dress the same way and appear for the fun of the public. In addition, they got more housework done than other Dion children. Only when they grew up, the girls found out that the house, the expensive food and the series of cars used by the family were paid for with money that came to the Dion budget thanks to the fives themselves.
Later, three of the five sisters claimed that their father sexually abused them during adolescence, and also that he did not forgive the authorities that most of the money earned on girls went to the treasury, and not to his pocket.
What happened to the mature sisters Dion
Pyatnyashki left his father's house after reaching 18 years and since then have little contact with their parents. Three of them were married and had children: Annette had three sons, Cecile gave birth to five children, two of whom are twins, one of her children died in infancy; Marie had two daughters. Marie left this world in 1970 year, before they reached 36 years. A thrombus broke in her brain.
Emily was not able to take root in society, so she went to the monastery to become a nun. Suddenly she began to suffer from epileptic seizures, from which she died in 20 years.
Yvonne also did not dare to start a family. She graduated from the nursing school, then took up sculpture, but eventually moved to a quiet job as a librarian. Since 90-s, Yvonne lived with divorced sisters Annette and Cecile until she died in 2001. In 1997, the sisters wrote a letter to the McCawy family, which became the parents of seven babies at a time. In the message they asked the parents of the little ones to protect the crumbs from widespread advertising. The sisters wrote that they were trying to protect their privacy during their entire adult life and dream that the MacCauy twins received more respect than they themselves had in their time:
“Our lives have been ruined by the exploitation we have suffered at the hands of the government of Ontario.”
