I’ve been pretty much losing my mind trying to collect all the First Day Cover envelopes for the 50th Canadian Anniversary of Girl Guides stamps. These envelopes have some beautiful GGC artwork and I think I’m really close to finishing the set. There has been a lot of heartbreak over thinking I’m going to win the eBay auction then having it sniped away in the last two seconds. However, that’s going to be a blog post for another day and often when I search for the FDCs, GGC stamps and postcards pop up. A few months ago, I found a 1941 postcard of the Brownie Enrollment of the Dionne Quintuplets. If the date on the sale listing was correct, this enrollment would have taken place in a time when they were still some of the most famous children in North America and I couldn’t help but wonder how such high profile children involved would have affected the growth of the movement. I felt I had seen a few references of the Dionnes’ Guiding career, but hoped the back of the postcard, which wasn't listed, would tell me more. So, taking a bit of a risk, I added the postcard to my cart and checked out.
Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie, and Marie Dionne were the first known surviving quintuplets ever born. On May 28, 1934 the sisters were born two months premature and four months later their family signed over custody to the Red Cross who could provide them with the medical care they needed. Less than a year later the Ontario Government passed the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935 making them wards of the Crown until they turned eighteen and the sisters were turned into a tourist attraction. In 1942, a year after their Brownie enrollment, custody
was returned to their parents and the sisters rejoined their family. This postcard is a product from this tourist industry created around the Dionne Quintuplets and possibly even sold by the sisters’ father, who ran a saviour stand by the Quintuples' compound to the original owner of the postcard on one of her three visits.
A week after my purchase, I was ecstatic to receive the postcard in the mail. The fact that this postcard was sold as a Brownie enrollment photo had me intrigued as there are a couple of things that stood out as odd about it. First, the sister’s uniforms don’t appear to match, Yvonne and Annette are missing their scarves and while they have hats, they don’t match the brown wool beret that was part of the uniform for this time period. Secondly, the sisters are army saluting the flag, rather than giving the two or three-finger salute used in Girl Guides. Given the date of the photo, the movement and its protocols were well established, so what was the cause of these oversights? Did they just not have access to well established leaders or units or is there something else happening in this photo?
I decided to go back to the two references I had. The first being ‘The Story of Girl Guides in Ontario’ by Katherine Panabaker printed in 1966 and the second ‘I Promise to do my Best Best: Ontario Guiding 1910-1985, by Mable Anderson in 1985. Unfortunately, neither author cites their sources which can make these books very challenging to work with at times. According to Panabaker, the Dionnes’ enrollment took place on May 28th, 1941. It was a large event where Guiding members from around the sisters’ hometown of Callander, Ontario came to welcome them to the movement. The ceremony was performed by the local Division Commissioner, Mrs. Elliot, and assisted by Madame Paulet, the French representative on the Canadian council. Panabaker also notes that later that same day, the sisters presented the Red Cross with a gift of an ambulance. Given what information is present and how it is presented, it feels within reason to assume Pananbaker used a newspaper article for her source rather than an interview with someone who witnessed the event first hand but this is just a guess on my part. A less detailed reference of the enrollment appears in Anderson’s updated version of Ontario Guiding history, Anderson does refer to Panabaker on page 28, for serving on the national committee and for writing ‘The Story of Girl Guides in Ontario’ in 1966. So we know that she was aware of the other book and very possibly used it as a source.
It was around this point in my research where I noticed that two books never mention the sisters’ Guiding career past their enrollment. I decided to turn to an online newspaper archive in hopes of finding the newspaper articles Panabaker may have used or articles about the Quintuplets’ Guiding activities. However, my search for any 1940’s articles written about the Dionnes and Guiding was unsuccessful, instead, I found one article published in 1998 that almost wraps up this mystery. While discussing her childhood in an interview for the Boston Globe, Annette admits that the enrollment was just one of many publicity stunts the sisters were forced to endure while under the care of the Ontario Government. The sisters were dressed in uniform and posed alongside other Brownies with the Ontario flag for photos. After the event, the uniforms were taken away and the sisters were never allowed to officially join Brownies or Guides. I think it is important to note that Annette’s account of the enrollment does differ to how Panabaker and Anderson describe it in their books and due to the fact they don’t cite their sources we won’t ever know for sure where they got their information. However, Annette’s account of the enrollment does explain the mistakes seen in the postcard photo.
It’s clear to see how this postcard fits into the Dionnes’ story but how do we incorporate this into the Girl Guides of Canada’s narrative? It seems unlikely that the Dionnes would have considered themselves Girl Guides but should we still consider this enrollment as a Girl Guide? I think we should, since all three accounts of the enrollment have the presence of youth members in uniforms and acting in their official roles. More importantly, Girl Guides has already claimed it as part of their history due to its appearances in two different books printed by Girl Guides of Canada. Currently, it's hard to find reference to the Dionnes’ involvement with Girl Guides and no mention of them appears on the 1930- 1949 history section on the official Girl Guide of Canada page for Ontario. However, I think this has to do more with Dionnes’ presence fading from our nation's narration then Girl Guides of Canada intentionally forgetting.
I haven't gone into too much detail about what happened to the sisters and I encourage everyone to do their own research into what happened here in Ontario. This postcard still matters today, as a way of continuing to hold Ontario accountable and as an example for the modern Girl Guide movement on how to present famous children in uniform. As the two surviving sisters turned 85 in 2019, they met with the Canadian Press for an interview and a warning for parents. The Dionnes grew up in a child zoo and that very public childhood came at a deep personal cost. Social media has made childhood more public than ever and Dionnes just want people to know how precious childhood is and that it should never be exploited for profit.
Thanks for reading!
EM
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