Obituary: Yvonne Dionne

One of the Dionne quintuplets. Died aged 67.

MONTREAL - Yvonne Dionne, one of three remaining Dionne quintuplets, has died of cancer.

The 1934 birth of Yvonne and her four identical sisters to an impoverished couple in the small town of Callander, Ontario, was hailed as a medical miracle.

At the time, they were the only known quintuplets to survive more than a few days, their combined weight being only 13 pounds six ounces (about 6.5kg).

When the Ontario provincial government deemed the Dionne parents unfit to care for their five girls, the quins were put in a specially built hospital - Quintland - where they became a moneymaking tourist attraction during the lean Depression years.

More than five million tourists viewed the girls there through one-way glass. All the girls survived to adulthood.

The three surviving Dionne quins eventually sued the Ontario government for separating them from their family and putting them on display. They received a $6.9 million settlement from the province in 1998.

One sister, Emilie, died in 1954; another, Marie, died in 1970. Yvonne, who qualified as a nurse in 1957, is survived by two of the quins, Annette and Cecile.

- NZPA