The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-02-13
By ERNEST LYNN

NEA Service Stan Correspondent.
 Callander, Ont.--In view of all that has been written about the Dionne quintuplets, your cor- respondent thought 1t would be an excellent idea, while mushing about the Lake Nipissing district in 30 below zero weather, to find out If he could what were the first words to be set down on paper concern ing the miracle of last May.
 Those words can now, as the saying goes, be told. Their author was Allan Roy Dafoe, the wise, kindly little country doctor who left his house on a hurry call at 4 in the morning one day last spring and returned a couple of hours later to make the following entry in his day book under date of May 2S:
 OIiva DiOnne-5 F
 Thus, in the stark brevity of a physicians modest diary entry, was written down the fact of the most amazing maternity case of medical record.
 The wife of Oliva Dionne had borne five female children, ant this the doctor, all unconscious that the world was soon to start making the proverbial path to his door, dutifully recorded.
 THAT'S ALL HE WROTE
 Dr Dafoe told me this stS.y hospital where the famed quintu- come in a few minutes before, with haortu HWo1l hnW'c YnU DnpU this morning?" to Nurse Louise de
 "And that's all you wrote?" asked him.
 That's all. You're the first to ask me if 1 wrote anything"
 Well, the world had lost no time in taking up where the doctor left
 Dr Dafoe Chuckled and puffed ot his pipe. Shucks, he hadn't had time to speculate on the appalling wonder of living quintuplets. The mother was in very bad way: sho might die. That was his chief worry.
 HAD TO SAVE MOTHER
 Had to keep that mother alive; she had five other children. you know. Had to hustle around and get help. Had to try to keep those qutntuplets living, too, but he hadn't the faintest notion that they would survive. Quintuplets never did.
 And who would have had any such notion? Not you or certain ly--not if we had seen those scrawny, pitifully tiny mahogany colored bodies, born two months too soon, heard them whimper in- stead of cry, seen them wrapped up in absorbent cotton, seen them fed few drops of warm, sterile water from a medicine dropper. RUM REVIVED THEM
 Some times during those fever ish days and nights that followed, days and nights when Nurse Yvonne Leroux held the fort for g. week without sleep and fell into bed with a fervent Thank God!' when relief finally came--some- times one or more of those babies would turn blue, and stiffen, and seem about to die.
 Then a bit of rum would be ad- ministered- half drop, maybe a drop-and the poor little body would relax and change col or, and nurse and doctor would breathe once more.
 Why rum? Well, rum hap pened to be the only alcoholic stimulant the doctor had at hand. It might have been brandy, you know, or whiskey. But a stimulant was needed.
 asked Dr Dafoe if he could re- member just when it was that he began to think in terms of the probability of the quintuplets' sur- yival.
 FEARED TO HOPE
 Not for a long time, he said. Each day that passed and left them alive was regarded as that much gain, of course. "But I didn't give them much of a chance until we moved them into the new hospital"
 The auintuplets were 4 months old then. Now another four months have passed, and the mir acle of their having lived is suc- ceeded by the miracle of their beauty.
 Beholding them to-day as they kick and wiggle, or as they lie quietly in innocent sleep-five nor nal, healthy baby girls of almost incredible sweetness-you find 1t unbelievable that at one time their combined weight was slightly less than 10 pounds.
 Their doctor says, we can't be- Sieve 1t ourselves"
 This. Dr Dafoe, you know--or