Dr. Dafoe
Allan Roy Dafoe
Born on May 29, 1883 in the village of Madoc, Ontario. His parents were William Allan Dafoe (who also was a physician) and Essa Van Deusen. The doctor was the first born in his family; he had seven sisters and one brother.
Dafoe moved to Callander and started his practice on January 2, 1909. He bought an existing practice for $100.00 and paid it back in monthly installments of $10.00.
The Doctor bought this house in 1914; the year that he and his wife Bertha Leila Morrison, a nurse in the area married. She died in 1926 after only twelve years of marriage of pneumonia and meningitis. Mrs. Dafoe left one son, William, who was nine years of age at the time. The Doctor hired a housekeeper, Mrs. Little who had a young daughter, Mary Hannah, and they both lived in the house. Young William eventually went to boarding school in the Toronto area and broke the tradition of becoming a doctor like his father and uncle and became a mechanical engineer. Interesting enough, William's son, William Jr, became a doctor and specializes in Cardiac Rehabilitation.
For eight years the doctor continued medicine, treating many patients and deliver babies. The doctor was well liked by some of the area people; however, others said he was a peculiar man, who was very reserved and strict. Dr. Dafoe was a surgeon, a dentist, an obstetrician, as well as an accomplished gardener and organ player. He enjoyed taking care of horses, gardening and other chores were his forms of relaxation and was an avid reader.
On June 2, 1943 Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe died at the North Bay Hospital of pneumonia (complications of cancer) at the age of sixty. The doctor had given 27 years to Callander and area residents. For his work with the Dionne Quintuplets, he received the Order of the British Empire.
What Happened in 1934?
On May 28, 1934 the doctor was called to the house of Oliva & Elzire Dionne in a small town of Corbeil, Ontario, minutes away from Callander to help with the delivery of the multiple births. Dafoe's career as a simple country doctor ended that day, a day before his 50th birthday. The Midwives Mme Legros and Mme Lebel had already delivered two of the babies and sent for Dr. Dafoe because Mrs. Dionne's health was failing with the strain of the births. The doctor arrived to see the third baby being born and immediately went to action.
He took over with the last two births and helped Mrs. Dionne to recover. He organized the midwives into getting more clean sheets, something to keep the babies in, and more heat in the house to keep them warm. The babies Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie were bathed in warm olive oil and were fed water, with corn syrup and rum to stimulate their blood flow and heart rate.
Posted on: Aug. 01, 2008