Dionne Quintuplets Dolls
Posted By whatsitworth on July 5, 2012
As part of my job as a personal property evaluator, I have the fun of visiting estates and giving people an idea of what their personal property, artwork, furniture and collectibles would bring were they to be sold at auction. Last week I was up near wine country to evaluate a collection of 500 to 600 dolls.
Dionne quintuplet dolls
It was a nice collection spanning most of the 20th century; it included a large assortment of Shirley Temple dolls in a variety of sizes and movie roles, painted bisque dolls and a fine set of five little composition dolls in a wooden wagon. The collection included a complete set of the Dionne Quintuplet dolls!
The Dionne Quintuplets were the earliest known surviving quintuplets. Born on May 28, 1934 to French speaking Catholic parents of five children already, the girls, who each weighed only about 2 pounds, were not expected to survive. They were kept warm, fed a mixture of milk, water and corn syrup and miraculously lived.
Parents Oliva and Elzire were contacted by organizers of the 1933-1934 Chicago World’s Fair; the parents, worried about the cost of raising the girls, decided to let the girls be exhibited. Horrified, the Canadian government stepped in and made the girls wards of King George V. The girls were moved to a newly built house staffed with doctors and nurses; nurses exhibited the girls to the public and a tourist attraction was born.
Dubbed “Quintland,” the house and garden let the public observe the girls in every phase of their lives. To keep their identities straight, the girls were each assigned a color: Annette wore red; Marie, blue; Yvonne, pink; Cecile, green and Emile, white. A special train ran from Ontario to Quintland and it is estimated that between 1934 and 1943 more than 3 million tourists had visited Quintland; the quints brought more revenue to depression era Canada than did Niagara Falls.
At just a few months old the quints had their first endorsement for Bee Hive Corn Syrup. Throughout the first 9 years of their lives they appeared in advertisements for oatmeal, toothpaste, life insurance, soaps, cleaning supplies and automobiles. They were featured in books, postcards and calendars; several novels and films loosely fictionalized their lives. Proceeds – some say as much as 8 million dollars – were to have been kept in trust for the girls but when they turned 18 only about $100,000 remained.
In 1937 the New York based Madame Alexander decided to model the girls and sell the set of five dolls. They issued several sets of the girls as toddlers dressed in rompers and bonnets in their signature colors. One set was presented in laundry baskets, another in a bed, one on a Ferris wheel and the one I saw on an elongated tricycle. The dolls were a huge success.
My 8-year-old Mom received a set of the Dionne Quintuplets dolls from her aunts at Christmas in 1937. Growing up, my four sisters and I were allowed to play with them when visiting our grandparents: we learned to sew by making clothes for the quints!
The set illustrated here is in nice condition: the girls retain their name badges and the tricycle retains the painted remnants of the girls’ names. The dolls are missing the bonnets and shoes that the originals would have had but otherwise their condition is quite nice. At auction I’d estimate them to bring $300-500.
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