Happy Mother's Day to all of the bloggers and their Moms on this important day. I hope you have shared some time with your mother, and if she is no longer with you, then share in the joy of her memory.
I got my Mom a Mother's Day gift.
I was at an auction sale, as I so often do on weekends, and I made a special purchase with Mom in mind.
I was able to purchase a very fine set of the five Dionne Quintuplet collector spoons (pictured at the top of the post), dating back to the 1930s. Mom was always interested in the quints, as she was born about the same time as those famous five girls.
From Wikipedia:
The Dionne Quintuplets (born on May 28, 1934) are the first quintuplets known to survive their infancy. They were born two months prematurely with the assistance of Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and two wet nurses. The chances of having identical quintuplets are one in 57 million, so this was unimaginable.
The five identical sisters are:
* Annette
* Cecile
* Emilie (died August 6, 1954 of an epileptic seizure)
* Marie (died February 27, 1970 of a blood clot in the brain)
* Yvonne (died June 23, 2001 of cancer)
Their birthplace in Ontario, Canada is the subject of some dispute, as the Dionne farmhouse was in a rural area between two towns. However, their birth was registered in nearby Corbeil in northern Ontario, which parents Elzire and Oliva Dionne considered home. Because the somewhat larger town of Callander reaped most of the commercial benefit, some sources say they were born there. Language politics complicate the issue; Callander is an English town, but Corbeil, like the Dionnes, was largely Franco-Ontarian. Perhaps to resolve the issue, the Dionne Quintuplets Museum is currently located in the nearest city, North Bay.
The story of the Dionne Quints was not always a happy one, and was marred by tragedy and heartbreak from the very beginning:
The custody of the babies was withdrawn from their parents by the Ontario government of Mitchell Hepburn in 1935. The girls were made the wards of the province and they were put under the guidance of Dr. Dafoe and three other guardians. Ontario housed them in Quintland, a theme park located just across from the parents' home. The sisters could be viewed by visitors through a one-way mirror. Approximately 6,000 people per day visited the park to observe them. In 1934, the quintuplets brought in around $1 million, and they attracted in total about $51 million of tourist revenue to Ontario. The park became Ontario's biggest tourist attraction of the era.
The girls were also used to publicize commercial products such as corn syrup and Quaker Oats and starred in some Hollywood films:
* The Country Doctor (1936)
* Reunion (1936)
* Five of a Kind (1938)
* Quintupland (1938)
The quintuplets also performed various stage acts for audiences. In particular, their performance of "There Will Always be an England" continues to irritate some French-Canadians. After a nine-year court fight between the government and their father, the quintuplets were returned to their family in 1943. Dr. Dafoe died shortly thereafter.
In 1965, they published a book called We Were Five. This account, along with a biography by Pierre Berton, informed a TV movie about them, Million Dollar Babies (1994), produced by CBS and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and starring Roy Dupuis and Céline Bonnier. The next year, the surviving girls alleged they were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of their father, and that the Roman Catholic Church urged them to cope by wearing thick coats. In 1998, the Ontarian government gave the Dionnes a settlement of $4 million CDN.
Now to the present day.
The auction photo doesn't do the spoons justice, as they are much nicer live, than in the picture. They were a sale feature, and due to a surprising lack of interest, I was able to buy them for a very reasonable price.
Mom just loves the spoons. They are a gift from a far off time, from a story of five young girls, whose lives were mixed with joy, tragedy, and sorrow. Their lives are an object lesson in heartbreak, exploitation, greed, and terrible family problems. Let the Dionne Quints show you the value of love and sharing, and the happiness they never found.
Show your love to your Mother, and to everyone else in your family, and circle of loved ones. That's what Mother's Day is all about.
Enjoy your Mother on her special day, and share in her happiness and her many blessings.
