Life Without Father

Oliva Dionne, father of Canada's famed quintuplets, called an unwonted press conference last week in the $60,000 house that his daughters' income built at Corbeil, Ont. "The quints did not come home for Christmas," Papa Dionne announced sadly. "We didn't even receive a card from them. They didn't write; they didn't phone. We have realized for some months that they have been drifting away ... we decided it would be better if we didn't try to camouflage things any longer."

In Montreal, where the four surviving quints, Yvonne, Annette, Marie and Cecile, are living (Emilie died in 1954), Papa Dionne's statement set off a flurry of explanations. "We sent a Christmas card," snapped Yvonne. "Is it our fault if they didn't get it?" Later it was reported that the quints had intended all along to go home for New Year's, the traditional French-Canadian day for giftgiving. Finally, the sisters' financial adviser, Lawrence Edwards, of the Guaranty Trust Co. of Canada, offered a fuller explanation. "For the first time in their lives, the quints are making their own decisions," said Edwards. "They love their family, but they want a life of their own."

Ever since their 21st birthday last year, when each girl got a one-fifth share of their $1,000,000 trust fund, the Dionne sisters have been trying to slip out of the spotlight that has shone on them since birth. They began wearing different clothes and hairdos. Yvonne and Cecile continued training as nurses at a suburban Montreal hospital, Marie returned to a convent and Annette went to study music at Nicolet, Que. But a month ago, the separation became unbearable and the sisters reunited in Montreal.

Marie and Annette rented an apartment and the other sisters visited them in the evenings and on their days off. They went to movies and to dances, sometimes had friends in for dinner, but generally lived so quietly that even their hallway neighbors were unaware that the famed sisters lived in the same building. Their mother visited them, but their father, who apparently took a dim view of his daughters' new way of life, never called.

Even after Papa Dionne's public outburst, the quints resolutely went on living their own lives. They dodged in and out of their apartment, successfully bypassing swarms of newsmen and photographers. One night late in the week, three of them slipped out to a car, then drove 300 miles to Corbeil to patch up the family quarrel. The mission was successful; the three girls (Marie was ailing) were received with kisses and joyful tears and Papa Dionne announced that the whole sorry uproar was nothing but a misunderstanding.

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