After four months with their family, custody was signed over to the Red Cross, which paid for their care and oversaw the building of a hospital for the sisters.

Less than a year after this agreement was signed, the Ontario government stepped in and passed the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935, which made them wards of the Crown until the age of 18.

In 1938, the doctors had a theory that was later proven correct when genetic tests showed that the girls were identical, meaning they were created from a single egg cell.

Organised pre-natal care was not practiced at that place and time so based upon his observations, he thought Elzire's baby may have a "fetal abnormality".

Dafoe delivered the babies with the help of two midwives, Aunt Donalda and Madame Benoît Lebel, who were summoned by Oliva Dionne in the middle of the night.

They were then fed with "seven-twenty" formula: cow's milk, boiled water, two spoonfuls of corn syrup, and one or two drops of rum for a stimulant.

[15] Dr. Alan Brown of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children ensured that a train with twenty-eight ounces of breast milk was delivered to the quintuplets each morning.

[5] Oliva Dionne was approached by fair exhibitors for Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition within days of the girls' birth, seeking to put the quintuplets on display and show them to the world.

[16] The parents were persuaded to agree on the advice of the doctor present at the birth, Dr. Dafoe, and the family priest, Father Daniel Routhier.

He claimed that they must save the babies from further exploitation and, in March 1935, pushed the Dionne Quintuplets Act through government, that officially made the girls wards of the Crown and extended guardianship to the age of eighteen.

The staff house held the three nurses and the three police in charge of guarding them, while a housekeeper and two maids lived in the main building with the quintuplets.

Cared for primarily by nurses, they had limited exposure to the world outside the boundaries of the compound except for the daily rounds of tourists, who, from the sisters' point of view, were generally heard but not seen.

Oliva Dionne ran a souvenir shop and a woollen store opposite the nursery, and the area acquired the name "Quintland".

The souvenirs, picturing the five sisters, included autographs and framed photographs, spoons, cups, plates, plaques, candy bars, books, postcards, and dolls.

The home had many amenities that were considered luxuries at the time, including telephones, electricity and hot water and was nicknamed "The Big House".

[31] The nursery was eventually converted into an accredited school house where the sisters finished their secondary education along with ten Roman Catholic girls from the area who were chosen to attend.

[5] While the parents claimed that they wished to integrate the quintuplets into the family, the sisters frequently travelled to perform at various functions, and still dressed identically.

According to the accounts of the surviving sisters, the parents often treated them at home as a five-part unit, and frequently lectured them about the trouble they had caused the family by existing.

She had a series of seizures while she was a postulant at a convent and had asked not to be left unattended, but the nun who was supposed to be watching her thought she was asleep and went to Mass.

Pierre Berton published a biography called The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama in 1977 and narrated a 1978 National Film Board of Canada documentary.

Nihmey's and Foxman's book was the basis for the 1994 TV miniseries Million Dollar Babies, produced by CBC and CBS and starring Beau Bridges, Roy Dupuis and Céline Bonnier.

[citation needed] In 1997, the three surviving sisters wrote an open letter to the parents of the McCaughey septuplets, warning against allowing too much publicity for the children,[38][39] after which they reached a $4 million settlement with the Ontario government as compensation for their exploitation.

[40] The original family homestead was moved around 1960 to a location on Highway 11B, near the present Clarion Resort, and again in 1985 to North Bay and converted into the non-profit Dionne Quintuplets Museum.

As of October 2016[update], the museum closed, and the city of North Bay was considering selling the building as surplus, though a petition was circulated by citizens to have it designated and preserved as a historical structure.

In 2017, plans surfaced for the city to sell the building, and relocate it to a fairground in the village of Sundridge 75 km south of North Bay.

[42] In the short story "Mandarin Jade", Raymond Chandler wrote in Chapter 3 of "an advertising calendar showing the Dionne quintuplets rolling around on a sky-blue floor".

In chapter 11 of his 1939 novel The Big Sleep, Chandler described "an advertising calendar showing the Quints rolling around on a sky-blue floor, in pink dresses, with seal-brown hair and sharp black eyes as large as mammoth prunes".

[43] Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny said the fictional Ouellet quintuplets in her book How The Light Gets In "were certainly inspired by the Dionne girls".

"[citation needed] In the 1941 film Dumbo, a musical number, titled "Look Out for Mr. Stork", contains lyrics mentioning "those quintuplets and the woman in the shoe".

Stephen Sondheim referenced the quintuplets in his song "I'm Still Here" from the musical Follies with the line "I got through Abie's Irish Rose, five Dionne babies, Major Bowes ...".