May 28, 2013 (Tuesday)
On this day, May 28, in 1934–4 months before my third birthday, the Dionne Quintuplets were born in Ontario, Canada, to poor French-speaking parents. They were the first quintuplets known to survive. Not one of any other sets lived more than a few days. The single fertilized egg divided and became six babies in the mother’s womb, one of which was aborted at the third month of pregnancy. The five were born prematurely and were genetically identical.
Annette and Cecile celebrate their 79th birthday today, but three sisters have died: Emilie,in 1954; Marie,in 1970; and Yvonne, in 2001.
When I was growing up, I heard a lot about them. Every time I went to a theater, if a newsreel was shown, it featured the quintuplets. The world watched them grow up. The government built a hospital just for them, named it “Quintland,” and displayed the children to the public, making a half-billion dollars thereby.
The quints wrote two books, in both of which they protested their being displayed in a manner they termed,”a circus.” In 1997, the three surviving quintuplets, in a letter to new parents of sextuplets, wrote: “..multiple births should not be confused with entertainment, nor should they be an opportunity to sell products…Our lives have been ruined by the exploitation we suffered at the hands of the government of Ontario, our place of birth…We were displayed as a curiosity three times a day for millions of tourists…To all those who have expressed their support in light of the abuse we have endured, we say thank you.”
Devotional Thought: The “quints” were both fortunate and unfortunate–fortunate in that they survived when all other quintuplets had died, and unfortunate in that they were deprived of a life within their family of 14 children in all. Life is like that, isn’t it? Parts of it are great, other parts not so much. Or so it may seem to us. That’s just life. But God has given us a tremendous promise about all this, and here it is: “In everything God works for the good of those who love him.” (Romans 8:28 ERV). If we, His children, will honor Him as our Father who cares about us, we will discover the truth of this promise.