Sarah, the last of the Morlok quadruplets, who entertained audiences with her three sisters as a child but grew up with a nightmare father, has died aged 95. Her mother was expecting twins and went into labour a month early, delivering four identical girls born from a single egg which was considered a medical miracle at that time.
The family were given free housing, medical support and milk, with copious donations of money and knitted clothes. Their father despite being dubbed “Jolly Carl” by newspapers was a Nazi sympathiser and an extreme authoritarian whose mother had been mentally disturbed. He refused to let his daughters mix with other children, banned them from having boyfriends and sexually abused them. He had two of them — Helen and Wilma — surgically circumcised. He was “one of the worst fathers on earth” according to Audrey Clare Farley, who revealed their true story in a 2023 book entitled Girls and Their Monsters.
Three of the girls developed mental problems and were given electroconvulsive therapy. In their 20s they took part in a study of schizophrenia to determine whether their illness was caused by nature or nurture. Only Sarah recovered sufficiently to lead an independent life in which she married (not very happily) and had three children. Two sisters died at 72/73 and the third at 85.
The quads were born on 19 May 1930 between 10.25am and 10.35am in Lansing, Michigan. They had a 10th house Sun Mercury conjunct the destructive Fixed star Algol in Taurus square Neptune, with Chiron and North Node also in Taurus in the 10th. They had Pluto in the 12th in a tough opposition to Saturn square an explosive Mars Uranus in Aries – describing a dominating, ruthless, autocratic and damaging father. Their Moon was in Aquarius in the 7th trine Venus Jupiter and sextile Uranus Mars pointing to a marginally better relationship with their mother though she was complicit.
Their midpoints are truly difficult with a violent Uranus opposition Saturn/Pluto; a tormented Neptune opposition their destructive (abuse) Mars/Saturn; and a neurotic Neptune = Uranus/Pluto.
Their father Carl, born 8 September 1888 Germany, was a Sun Virgo with the late 19th century Neptune Pluto in Gemini which can be psychologically off-the-wall opposition a can-be-fanatical, might-makes-right Mars Jupiter in Scorpio which opposed the sisters’ Taurus Sun and Mercury.
Their mother Sadie, 8 March 1899, a highly-strung Sun Pisces square Neptune Pluto opposition Uranus and Saturn in Sagittarius was none too stable herself. Her Mars in Cancer was conjunct her daughters’ Pluto so she sparked a good deal of anger from them for not protecting them.
What an unholy mess and a tragedy.
ADD ON: The Dionne Quintuplets, born 28 May 1934 3.56am Callander, ON Canada, were born prematurely and when months old their custody was signed over to the Red Cross and then the Crown but that did not stop them being exploited as a tourist attraction. Their mother was accused of physically abusing them and their father of sexual abuse. Only one quintuplet is alive today. Two died in their 20s/30s, one in 2001 and the fourth died on July 28, 2025, at the age of 91.
There are strong similarities in the charts with the quads, with a Sun square Neptune; and a ferocious Mars Algol opposition a Scorpio Moon square Saturn; with the opposition forming the driving rod of a Water Grand Trine of Moon trine Pluto trine Scheat. Plus Pluto square Uranus Venus in Aries.
Poor kids what a disaster.
Is there anything in the mother charts or children’s chart showing a jealous mother?
The Dionne quints girls from Ontario,Canada had the exact same childhoods! Virgoflake, thank you for remembering!
The Quints are Gemini Sun and have Mercury at 23 Gemini whereas the Quads have Venus there. Mars rather than the Sun conjunct Algol. Pluto in the Dionne chart is conjunct the IC from the 3rd. Interesting regarding the sexually abusive fathers in both cases.
There is only one of the Dionne quintuplets still alive, Annette. The third of the quints to be born, Cecile, passed away at the age of 91 in Montreal just recently on July 28, 2025.
Awful….
Poor girls. What an awful story. A weird coincidence – their father was born on the day Annie Chapman’s body was discovered in Whitechapel, an event that stirred up great fear and panic.
“Annie Chapman (born Eliza Ann Smith; 25 September 1840 – 8 September 1888) was the second canonical victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London from late August to early November 1888.” Wiki
Thanks Jane. I always associate the year with the Ripper murders, the ingress of Neptune into Gemini and the conception of Adolf Hitler who was born the following year.
This is a terribly sad story. Reminiscent of the Dionne Quints, who also suffered abuse from their cruel father after they were returned to the custody of their parents.
Thanks VF. I hadn’t thought of the conception of Adolf Hitler. Chilling. That July London’s East End saw the Matchgirls’ Strike, 1,400 young girls and women who worked in appalling conditions for Bryant and May. They were often disfigured and eventually killed by “phossy jaw” caused by the phosphorus used in the matches. A very significant strike indeed, with Neptune in Gemini squaring UK Pisces Pluto too. As Marjorie says, that Neptune and Pluto in Gemini can be “off the wall”.
It was the year that saw the Neptune/Pluto conjunction in Gemini as well as Neptune’s final ingress from Taurus. The conception of Hitler comes from Alan Moore’s ‘From Hell’, a fantasy graphic novel about the Ripper murders in which Moore satirises the Monarchy, British Establishment and their fictional involvement in the murders, while focusing on the events leading up to and around the time of the murders, including the arrival of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in London for her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and the plight of the John Merrick, the so-called ‘Elephant Man’. An impressive appendix contains much fascinating historical and mythic background to the location, Whitechapel. One chapter opens with the conception of Adolf Hitler which must have occurred in Autumn’88, around the time of the murders. That kind of stayed with me!
*Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.
Neptune in Gemini will square Pluto in Pisces in the second half of this century.
I don’t wish to make light of the difficult themes on this thread but if you said 1888 to me – I’d think start of the Football League and a quick look at wikipedia suggests the first matches were played on 8th Sept !!
But of course! An unforgivable oversight on my part, GD. ;D