• October 16, 1995
• Vol. 44
• No. 16

Life with Father

By Jane Nicholls

Three Remaining Quints Accuse Oliva Dionne of Sexual Abuse

THEY ARRIVED IN THE GLOOM OF the Great Depression and became the unwitting stars of a bizarre attraction: Quintland, a human theme park in rural Corbeil, Ont., where millions came to gawk at five identical baby girls. From 1934 to 1943, the tourist mecca was both home and prison to Émilie, Marie, Cécile, Yvonne and Annette Dionne, born to a poor French-Canadian farmer, Oliva, and his wife, Elzire. Now, 61 years later, the three surviving Dionne quintuplets have voluntarily put themselves on display in a book, Family Secrets, accusing their long-deceased father of sexually abusing them. The abuse took place, they say, after he regained custody of the girls from the provincial government. Although Ontario claimed it was removing the children from the family to better care for them, it nevertheless cashed in on public fascination and put them on show until they were 9.

While they were still wards of the state, the quints appeared in ads for Quaker Oats and Palmolive soap, starred in three movies and met England's King George VI. Quint mania brought an estimated $500 million in tourism into Ontario, and a trust fund was established for the quints' endorsement earnings.

The Dionnes have been out of the limelight for decades. Émilie suffocated during an epileptic seizure at age 20, and Marie was 35 when she died of an apparent stroke. Family Secrets—written by Cécile, Yvonne and Annette in collaboration with Jean Yves-Soucy—not only puts the surviving sisters back in the news, it has reignited a lifelong feud with their six surviving non-quint siblings, who grew up in the shadow of their famous sisters. "They are enormously protective of their parents," says Cécile, now retired in the middle-class Montreal suburb of St. Bruno, where she shares a house with Annette. (Yvonne lives nearby.) "There was a stronger tie between them."

The quints' book, released in Canada in French (an English edition is planned), takes them to the eve of their 22nd birthday, when the four survivors were sharing an apartment in Montreal. Liberated from the family, Marie had opened a flower shop, and Yvonne worked as a nurse. Cécile, also a nurse, and Annette, a student, were falling in love. (All but Yvonne married; they have nine grown children among them, and are all now divorced.)

The quints now say Oliva would lasciviously rub ointment into their adolescent chests and grope them under their clothes when he took them out, one by one, in his Cadillac. Annette recalls that when she sought help around the age of 14, a chaplain advised her to "wear thick coats" for the car rides. (The quints say they told their mother when they were 18 and claim she feigned surprise.)

The charges of sexual abuse have enraged the quints' siblings. "How could it happen if no one else in the family was aware of it?" demands sister Thérèse Callahan, 66, who claims, along with some old family friends, that the quints are interested mostly in money. Earlier this year, the quints filed a $10 million compensation claim against the Ontario government. For years, Cécile kept writing to the former premier that they were "taken hostage" and want what the government owes them. The matter is now before Ontario's attorney general.

Family disputes, though, are less tractable. "I would think [the quints] have enough money," says Callahan. "If they want to live in their own world, let them."

JANE NICHOLLS
LEAH ESKIN in Montreal and NATASHA STOYNOFF in Corbeil

• Contributors:
• Leah Eskin,
• Natasha Stoynoff.