PIC
9% Diary of “three Years
niHiL Dionne Quintuplets
by Nurse YVONNE LEROUX
N the afternoon of Monday, May
28, 1934, 1 was sitting in the
nurses’ residence of St. Joseph’s
Hospital at North Bay. Ontario,
o
with nothing more to occupy my .mind
than the thought that 1 had finally
achieved the age of 21 and should,
therefore, enroll myself as a voter for
the approaching provincial election.
My diary entry for May 28 reads:
“3 p m Same old day I’m so tired
I could drop .Two septic and two lung
cases.”
And then, after a brief gap. there is
this notation:
“Sister Felicitas (the superintefident)
has asked me to take a case in the
country One never knows what one is
heading for on these country cases
Wonder what it is? Oh, well—”
One never knows —I never wrote a
PIC
C”
Photon and sketches world copyright
1937. by N-BA Service. Inc.
Nurses de Kiriline and Leroux weigh
ing the babies, sketched from a
photograph.
truer or a more apt sentence in all my
life.
I had been instructed to go to Cal
lander and get in touch with Dr. Allan
Roy Dafoe. Now 1 was bom and grew
up in Callander just two doors from
Dr. Dafoe’s home. Like everyone in that
distri't, I admired and respected him
immensely.
1 went to Callander by bus, reaching
there early in the evening, and went at
once to the doctor’s office. He greeted
me with:
“Quintuplets—five babies at a single
birth—a thing that doesn’t happen once
in a hundred years! What’s more, they
are premature Seven-month babies.
Do whatever you can, keep them warm
and keep them quiet. Feed them ster
ilized water drop by drop from an eye
dropper. Try to keep them alive. Do
your best and I’ll be with you as much
as 1 can.”
To this day I don't recall a thing
By Yvonne Leroux
Part 1
about the drive to the Dionne farm #
I must have been in a daze. But 1 will
never forget the picture that met my
eyes in that farmhouse —five incredibly
tiny creatures' in a butcher’s basket,
covered with a white blanket that
smelled of moth balls. They were
wrapped in old but clean rags, pieces
of shirts, diapers, and so on. and they
were crying like tiny mewing kittens
For the next few days 1 had precious
little time to make any entries in a
diary 1 simply jotted down words and
phrases hurriedly, disconnectedly Here
is my entry for that first night.
“What have we here—Quintuplets—
(and a mother) premature seven
months —rickety—hungry —about three
drops fill them to the top. Mosquitoes,
dirt, flies and neighbors—nothing ex
cept above—oh. oh—”
j '•> €%
1 r>
•• • '
What a recollection those jumbled
words call up!
We had mosquitoes by night and files
by day, as there were no screens on
the house; there were, likewise, no hot
water bottles, no absorbent cotton, no
proper dishes, no blankets. Tiny as they
were, the babies were crowded in that
one basket. They sounded rather like
the ever-present mosquitoes when they
cried.
r PHE next night I was able to make a
coherent diary entry. Here it ia:
“May 29 Well, things are a little bet
ter. The babes seem stronger. But they
Mrs. Dionne and the five amazing babies, photographed for the first time
s few days after their birth.
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are so very, very tiny.
“This morning they had to be cleaned.
The kitchen stove was the only place
to do it. Paraphernalia: a saucer of
olive oil, some soft rags, larger pieces
of the cleanest and warmest cloths 1
could find, some boracic acid and a
prayer. Each babe was done on my
knee at the oven door; temperature of
room must have been about 100 degrees.
“Brought out basket and placed it on
chairs near stove. The babies are so
very skinny—they fit into the palm of
my hand.
“Dr. Dafoe came in and ordered a
formula of milk, corn syrup, and water.
The babes \nsere hungry and 1 gave them
two eye droppers full (30 drops). The
Red Cross nurse brought some breast
milk in the afternoon; gave it to the
three smallest. Got more hot water bot
tles, absorbent, diapers, and flannelette
from Callander women. Made absor
bent cotton coats for the babes.”
The next day’s entry was less hope
ful:
“May 31. Babes holding their own
and that’s all. All kinds of blue spells.
Bowels not good—babes jaundiced yel-
lowish. Milk of magnesia given in
milk.”
It was necessary to give the little
mites enemas the next day Dr. Dafoe
did this with a syringe, while Miss
Cloutier, the Red Cross nurse, and 1
held the babes. It was a terrible strain
to work with such tiny creatures; we
had to give them minute quantities of
rum right afterward, they were so ex
hausted. My diary entry for the day
read:
“June 1. I’m dead tired. Miss Clou
tier has been coming in for an hour or
two but I’m dead—l'm dying. The
babes are living, though. Breast milk
Y’vonne Leroux . . . Below,
a daily scene on the porch
of the Dionne home during
L the early infancy of the
iitki quintuplets.
ls sent to them. They’ll live—oh I’m
sure they’ll live. They are so tiny,
though. ... I was relieved at midnight.
How nice my bed—and did I sleep "
“June 3 Madame de Kinline has ar
rived. She and Miss C. organized a
nursery in the parlor, scrubbed, washed,
and cleared out everything and installed
a big incubator—heated with crocks.
Keep a boiler of hot water on stove.
“Jaundice is definitely established.
The babes are so dark that it makes
them look very bad indeed. They nave
been named—Yvonne. Annette, Cecile,
Emilie, and Marie, in order of size We
have small tags on their coats with their
names on them. Weights: Marie —1 Sfe
pounds!! Emilie —2 pounds 1 ounce, or
so. Cecile —about 2Ms pounds. Annette
—about the same. Yvonne (my pet)—2
pounds 13 ounces or so .”
4 »IUNE 4 Babes had their oil bath in
the new nursery this morning. We
have to work fast to prevent chilling.
It’s funny, too, we don’t dare rub too
hard because of the delicate skins, and
we fee) as if we were handling baby
chicks. The legs and arms might come
off.”
Now follows a more hopeful entry:
“June 5 Jaundice is improved a great
deal. All babes gained in weight this
a. m. Dr. William Dafoe (Dr Allan
Dafoes brother, from Toronto) came to
day to have a look at the *babes He
advises oxygen to help them breathe,
and we’ll have some sent to us.”
“June 7. Yvonne looks like a very
big baby when placed beside Marie.
They are beginning to look forward to
feeding time They lick their lips and
let out small annoyed cries. . . . Jaundice
is gone.”
“June 11. Babes are very languid to
day and hard to feed. Coloring not so
good. Are using rum and oxygen.”
And then comes an entry which,
while very brief, meant a great deal to
all of us:
“July 17. Quintuplet living record
broken today—and it looks as if they
can still hold their own.”
In the last 500 years there have been
32 authentic cases of quintuplets re
corded. No group of five lived longer
than an hour or so; the longest any
member of a group of five lived was
50 days. So when these five little
Dionnes got past that 50-day mark, we
had reason to feel tremendously elated
over the accomplishment.
NEXT WEEK: A nutse’i heroism
averts a tragedy tn the nursery ; the i
first Christmas.