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Annette Dionne, Last of the Celebrated Quintuplets, Dies at 91
Annette Dionne, Last of the Celebrated Quintuplets, Dies at 91
She was the first to crawl, the first to cut a tooth, the first to recognize her name, and the last to die. And, like her sisters, she resented being exploited as part of a global sensation.
Annette Dionne, left, in 2017, with her sister Cécile, who died in July. “It’s tiring, always being watched,” Annette said, recalling her childhood. “It was exploitation. We were not animals.” Aaron Vincent Elkaim for The New York Times
By Jane Gross
Dec. 26, 2025
Annette Dionne, who shared in her siblings’ fame as one of the first quintuplets known to survive infancy but who distinguished herself as the sturdiest, the most musical and generally the first in line when the girls, captured in Depression-era newsreels, were paraded here and there in identical bonnets and dresses, died on Wednesday in Beloeil, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal. She was 91 and the last surviving sister. ... Carlo Tarini, a family spokesman, announced the death, in a hospital, on Friday, saying the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
Of the Dionne quintuplets, indistinguishable in many ways, Annette was the first to crawl, the first to cut a tooth and the first to recognize her name, according to Life magazine, which chronicled the unparalleled celebrity of five babies born in an Ontario farmhouse before dawn on May 28, 1934.
From left, Marie, Emelie, Cécile, Annette and Yvonne were posed together on their first birthday, in 1935. Bettmann, via Getty Images
The saga of the Dionne quintuplets began as a flash of happy news in the dreary depths of the Depression. At a combined weight of 13 pounds, 6 ounces, they survived — in a farmhouse lit by kerosene, without much in the way of plumbing — on water and corn syrup until breast milk was donated. ... But there was money to be made in the publicity maelstrom. Among the beneficiaries, all with sketchy motives, was the Dionnes’ hometown, North Bay, Ontario, where the girls’ birthplace became a huge tourist attraction, bigger than Niagara Falls, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and spawning new hotels and highways. ... And then there was Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, the country doctor who arrived at the farmhouse after midwives had delivered the first two babies. He became the ringmaster of the media circus, who wound up feted across America and died a rich man.
Quintland, a compound in Ontario, Canada, was built to show off the quintuplets, who were cared for by Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and a nurse rather than their parents.
Even the bewildered parents, who lost custody of the quints to the government lest they be exploited, wound up selling overpriced binoculars and hot dogs at Quintland, a lavish compound where the girls were kept from their parents and cared for by Dr. Dafoe and hired staff.
{snip}
Jane Gross, a former reporter for The New York Times, died in 2022. Ian Austen and Ash Wu contributed reporting.
She was the first to crawl, the first to cut a tooth, the first to recognize her name, and the last to die. And, like her sisters, she resented being exploited as part of a global sensation.
Annette Dionne, left, in 2017, with her sister Cécile, who died in July. “It’s tiring, always being watched,” Annette said, recalling her childhood. “It was exploitation. We were not animals.” Aaron Vincent Elkaim for The New York Times
By Jane Gross
Dec. 26, 2025
Annette Dionne, who shared in her siblings’ fame as one of the first quintuplets known to survive infancy but who distinguished herself as the sturdiest, the most musical and generally the first in line when the girls, captured in Depression-era newsreels, were paraded here and there in identical bonnets and dresses, died on Wednesday in Beloeil, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal. She was 91 and the last surviving sister. ... Carlo Tarini, a family spokesman, announced the death, in a hospital, on Friday, saying the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
Of the Dionne quintuplets, indistinguishable in many ways, Annette was the first to crawl, the first to cut a tooth and the first to recognize her name, according to Life magazine, which chronicled the unparalleled celebrity of five babies born in an Ontario farmhouse before dawn on May 28, 1934.
From left, Marie, Emelie, Cécile, Annette and Yvonne were posed together on their first birthday, in 1935. Bettmann, via Getty Images
The saga of the Dionne quintuplets began as a flash of happy news in the dreary depths of the Depression. At a combined weight of 13 pounds, 6 ounces, they survived — in a farmhouse lit by kerosene, without much in the way of plumbing — on water and corn syrup until breast milk was donated. ... But there was money to be made in the publicity maelstrom. Among the beneficiaries, all with sketchy motives, was the Dionnes’ hometown, North Bay, Ontario, where the girls’ birthplace became a huge tourist attraction, bigger than Niagara Falls, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and spawning new hotels and highways. ... And then there was Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, the country doctor who arrived at the farmhouse after midwives had delivered the first two babies. He became the ringmaster of the media circus, who wound up feted across America and died a rich man.
Quintland, a compound in Ontario, Canada, was built to show off the quintuplets, who were cared for by Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe and a nurse rather than their parents.
Even the bewildered parents, who lost custody of the quints to the government lest they be exploited, wound up selling overpriced binoculars and hot dogs at Quintland, a lavish compound where the girls were kept from their parents and cared for by Dr. Dafoe and hired staff.
{snip}
Jane Gross, a former reporter for The New York Times, died in 2022. Ian Austen and Ash Wu contributed reporting.
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