A grim story with a grim chart to go with it. Five quintuplets born in 1934 were removed a few months after their birth from their family by the Canadian government and placed in a heavily guarded compound, where they were raised by nurses and exhibited to the general public like zoological specimens in a tourist attraction named Quintland. Six thousand people came each day to gawp at them through one-way glass as they played indoors or round the paddling pool. The proceeds were supposed to go into a trust fund to provide for them when they were adults, but the money was mismanaged and little of it remained. One died of a seizure at 20, another in her early thirties. A third sister died in 2001. Two are still alive.
The Canadian author Pierre Berton, who wrote about the quintuplets in the 1970s, thought their birth may have saved a nearly bankrupt province, bringing in some C$500 million — roughly C$9 billion (£5.4 billion) in today’s money. It certainly brought wealth to North Bay; a new highway was built, electricity and phone lines were laid, and some three million visitors made the pilgrimage to Quintland.
They weren’t given back to their parents until they were nine, who by that time were strangers. The three sisters surviving were compensated by the government in 1998.
They were born 28 May 1934 3.56am Callander, Ontario, with Mars conjunct the destructive Algol on their Taurus Ascendant opposition a Scorpio Moon square Saturn in Aquarius; with Pluto square Venus Uranus in Aries; and a wide Yod of Uranus Venus sextile Pluto inconjunct Moon – and an Air Grand Trine of Sun trine North Node trine Jupiter. That latter might just have been their saving grace with an optimistic Jupiter highlighted and a propensity for standing back and now drowning in their feelings.
But that is one tough chart especially where nurturing is concerned with the Moon tied into the cruel Mars Saturn and Pluto.
They left home at 18 and had little contact with their parents afterwards. They wrote an open letter to the parents of septuplets in 1997 warning against too much exposure, saying: ‘Our lives have been ruined by the exploitation we suffered.’ Unbelievable.