FAMOUS INFANTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21919, 1 October 1934, Page 12

FAMOUS INFANTS

CANADIAN QUINTUPLETS MOTHER'S SUBLIME FAITH BABIES- EXPECTED TO LIVE [from our own correspondent] VANCOUVER, Sept. 14 A sublime faith in God, in what sho terms a miracle, the birth of quintuplets, is tho keynote of the first interview permitted by her medical adviser to bo granted by Madame Ovila Dionne, of Northern Ontario. Hers is tho faith of the simple, pioneer, French-Canadian habitant type, that has made Quebec famous for its family lifo. ' This simple faith finds expression in her belief that her five babies will live. Speaking in French, tho only language sho knows, Mm©. Dionne said, if they lived until to-day, it meant that God wanted them to li\ o longer. As Lozira Legros, Mine. Dionne grew up in the little township of Corbeil. At tho ago of seven sho was an orphan. Sho went to school for three years only. Sho was married at 16 and, hut for her honeymoon trip to Ottawa, she ! has never been farther than three miles from home. She mot her husband while sho was at school. Obliged to leave school to care for her elder brothers, sho had a busy Ufa. Ovila, who was 22, was a thrifty, hard-working young man, who had bought his father's farm. Ho and Lezira were married in the church whero they wcro christened. Six children born to her before tho advent of tho quintuplets canto into tho world without benefit of physician. One died when ho was a month old, as the midwives had predicted. Incredible as it may seen, many ' persons wrote to Mine. Dionne, abusing her when the quintuplets were born. "They wero jealous," sho said. Asked if sho had any plans for their future, she said time would settle tho question. When she and her husband wero > pestered with offers by Chicago promoters, she held herself aloof from the discussions, as sho has no intention of leaving the farm where she and Ovila : and her children have been so happy. , Mmo. Dionne scarcely ventures out of doors. Hundreds of visitors ask daily for a glimpse of her, but sho refuses to show herself. She sits for hours ill her living room, and occasionally goes into i tho gardon with tho older children, and i sits behind a clump of bushes, where ! no prving eyes can see her. If an Imi portunato stranger ventures near, Mine. Dionne .flees into tho house, and will not reappear for hours. The family will move, next month, across the road to a now homo, built by tho Government. It will have every comfort and convenience. The quintuplets, who aro to be wards of tho Stato, will have a wing of the house to themselves, wlyiro they will have every assistance, in their battle for life, that medical scienco can give.