Jennifer Lemesure (22:27)
In 1926 in Toronto, Canada, a 72 year old lawyer named Charles Vance Miller was at lunch at the Queen's Hotel with two lawyer friends. They got into an argument over some legal matter. Miller told them they were both wrong and he'd prove it if they followed him up to his office. He eagerly ran up three flights of stairs, grabbed a law book, plopped it on his desk and then died. Just put his head down on the desk and was gone. A couple days later, rumors started swirling. Charles Vance Miller had done well for himself, gotten rich. He'd avoided scandal his whole life. Was an upstanding citizen, though he had no family, never married. He'd hinted that he'd leave his fortune to the University of Toronto. But when his fellow lawyers brought out his will, that's not what they found. As soon as Miller's people started executing his will, they realized that his will was like an elaborate prank, as if he'd thrown a bunch of money out of a window to watch what would happen. He left stock in a brewery to prohibitionist pastors. He gave his racing stock to people who didn't believe in betting. He said he wanted to leave his vacation home in Jamaica to three other lawyers. A nice thing for them to share, except for the fact that the three lawyers all hated each other. But by far the clause that unleashed the most mayhem was the last one. It's about all the rest of his money. I'll just read it to you. At the expiration of 10 years from my death, give it and its accumulations to the mother who has, since my death, given birth in Toronto to the greatest number of children as shown by the registrations under the Vital Statistics Act. In other words, the woman who had the most Babies in the 10 years after his death would be awarded a whole lot of money. Nine million Canadian dollars in today's money, or almost US$7 million. There were immediately a number of theories as to why Miller did this, but none of them were charitable. If he really wanted to support a young woman with a bundle of kids, he could have just willed all the money to her at the time of his death. But setting this up over the next 10 years created a twisted contest. Some said he was an avid supporter of birth control, so maybe setting off a baby making storm could be a wicked way to force a conversation about it. Some said he was trying to test the legal system's ability to hold up a crazy will, but that he'd really expected it would be thrown out. That the money would automatically just be donated to the University of Toronto, his alma material. People said that Miller had been obsessed with the idea of what people would do for money. He liked to talk about how everybody had their price. Maybe he was testing the women of Toronto to see what theirs was. I don't think anybody, you know, fully knows why he did this. This is Elizabeth Wilton. She wrote a 200 page dissertation on the contest. I just think he saw it as a big joke. I feel like the modern day word for it would be that he was basically a troll. That would be a good word for it. Yeah. He pretty much cops to it in his will. He says, this will is necessarily uncommon and capricious because I have no dependents or near relations and no duty rests upon me to leave any property at my death. And what I do leave is proof of my folly in gathering and retaining more than I required in my lifetime. Apparently, Miller really liked to drop dollar bills on the sidewalk and hide and watch people pick them up. When I think about the kind of person who'd plant a wallet in the street and put it on YouTube today as a commentary on human nature, yeah, I feel like I know who that guy is. For the first few years after Miller died, nothing happened. A few newspaper articles were written. Nobody took it very seriously. Some relatives went to court arguing that the money should go to them. And then six years after his death, the Attorney General introduced a bill trying to nullify the will and have the money donated to the University of Toronto. This was a mistake. Totally backfired. Before this, not many people knew about the will, but now that the government was trying to invalidate it, the press picked it up and there was a huge public outcry, but not in the way you might think. The public was like, baby making race. Hell yeah, we want a baby making race. Women's group supported the contest because they felt women should have a fair shot at the money, which, what can I say, it was a different time. Others disagreed with the government intervening in people's wills and affairs. Altogether, it caused an uproar. The government backtracked, said, okay, fine, you people have fun. And with that, the race was on. Usually when this story has been told, it's like, ha, ha. A man created this zany will that set off a wild baby making storm in Canada. It conjures Brady Bunch images of big families happily shtupping their way to fame and fortune, knee deep in cabbage patch children. But the way it unfolded was actually much darker because, of course, the story is about an old man encouraging women to go through the excruciating pain and danger of childbirth as often as possible in a 10 year period. A 10 year period that was already half over. This contest didn't really get started until six years in. That made it skewed from the start. It meant suddenly the only contenders were women who had about six babies in the last six years. Women who didn't even know there was a contest to be part of. They found out about it quick when reporters started pounding on their doors. It was madness, really. It was a media feeding frenzy. This is Karen Nolan. She worked with Elizabeth to develop a screenplay for a movie Based on the contest that aired on Canadian television in 2002. As soon as the will was verified, reporters went through the birth registry, found women who had already given birth to about six children since Charles death and dashed to their homes to try and get the exclusive. You know, they coined the phrase the Stork Derby, comparing it to like a horse race. So there was a mad dash to track down the women, get their exclusive stories, and to follow them and hound them on the very intimate and personal details of their life. It must have been a jarring experience to be an automatic front runner in this bizarre contest. But most of the mothers went along with it. Because of the $9 million, many of the contestants were desperately poor. During those first six years, the Great Depression had taken hold. Nearly a quarter of Toronto's families were on welfare. Families were living in shacks or camps. Some even ate groundhogs to keep from starving. Canada's birth rate had actually plummeted at the time. And so most of the families that suddenly found themselves on the running to receive the Stork Derby money agreed to media scrutiny because they wanted the chance at the prize and because in the short term, the newspapers offered them money. Exclusive contracts where reporters could come and photograph and interview the families whenever they wanted to. Sometimes the families even got advertising deals for things like soap. In many ways, this was sort of like an OG reality show, albeit a really perverse one. The frontrunners of the historic derby even became household names like John and Kate plus eight, or maybe more like Octomom. After all, it was billed on the newsreels as freak Canadian race papers all over the world, from the New York Daily News to the Marshfield, Wisconsin News. Herald picked up the story. The press followed a bunch of contenders, but I'm only going to run through three of the long term favorites to win. One of the first competitors that the newspapers dug up was Mrs. Grace Bignotto. I don't want to give away who won or how many kids Mrs. Bignotto actually had during the race, but over her lifetime, Mrs. Bignotto was pregnant 24 times, though only 12 of those children lived. She was a working mother. She was a wiz with languages, picked up Polish, German, Yiddish, and worked as a court interpreter in Italian. All the while, she raised her 12 children and would get up at 4:30 in the morning to make two dozen butter tarts, macaroni meatballs, sausage, and her famous red sauce for her family. But the public didn't exactly see her as a hero. Here's Karen again. The cultural Makeup of Toronto at the time was a very WASPy, WASPy society. And we have this Italian family here who is, you know, reproducing children at a rate that outpaced the white Protestant, Anglo Saxons. Mrs. Magnetta's husband was an Italian immigrant, and some papers weren't kind about that. These were the years leading up to World War II. Of course, it didn't help that one of the other Italian contestants named one of their Derby babies little Benito Mussolini. But because of their nationality, Italian families in the race received phone calls calling their families fascists and threatening to kidnap their children. Contestant number two was Mrs. X. She was the scandalous one. She was a social outcast because her children were fathered by different men, which was, you know, taboo. And she was shamed for that. She was considered to be a trollop, you know, by having children with more than one man. That's a saucy word. I should start using that. Mrs. X had five children from her husband, but then her marriage fell apart, he moved out, and she entered into a new relationship with a man and had another five kids with him. She wanted to marry him, but didn't have enough money to go through with her divorce. All in all, Mrs. X had 10 children by the time she was 24. She tried to hide her identity because of the circumstances of her situation, but her name was eventually revealed. Pauline May Clark. Contestant number three was Mrs. Kenney. She's my favorite character in the whole, whole story. Why is she your favorite? I think her eccentricity, for one thing, her passion and her undeniable belief that she was the chosen one, if you will. Mrs. Kenney was in it to win it. She was under 5ft tall, but over the course of her lifetime, she wound up carrying 19 pregnancies to terminate. She was French Canadian, married to an Irish man, and she believed that money was hers. She said she had the gift of second sight and a divine connection with Miller, who told her she was going to win. So of course it had to be true. Mrs. Kenney was a talented woodcarver and often sold her carvings in the street. And she carved a large number of statues of Miller, even named one of her children after him. At one point, a bunch of the leading Derby mothers got together and said, screw this whole race. Let's just share the winnings. It was a ton of money. They were all poor. It would still result in plenty for everyone. But Mrs. Kenney was the sole holdout, the only one who insisted. No, I'm the winner. She shouted once. And I won't split with anybody. Why should I? It's my money. And if the judge doesn't give it all to me, I'll walk right up to the bench and punch him in the eye. So, yeah, Mrs. Kenney was tough as nails, but she probably was the poorest of the three. Her family lived in a slum and their home was infested with rats. One night, rats attacked three of her children. Tiny three month old Patrick had the worst of it. Here's Karen. So, yes, it had bitten the baby in the face and neck area. And you know, as we all know, throughout history, rats carry diseases. But they couldn't afford the hospital. They couldn't. It is. This is so difficult to even talk. I mean, it's unbelievable that it still chokes me up. Mrs. Kenney and her neighbors tried desperately to have the public health nurse visit her home, but to no avail. The baby died. And then it was all over the front pages of the newspaper. But always written in terms of what this meant for the chances of Mrs. Kenney or whatever other woman was, you know, that the coverage was centered on every loss or tragedy or triumph was always put in terms of their chances in the race, you know, not in terms of what kind of a system do we have where someone's baby can die of rat bites in the first place? It's hard to say how many women had babies specifically for this race. When they talked to reporters, everyone always said the same thing. I would have had this child anyway. I tend to believe Mrs. Bignotto and many of the other Catholic families in the race. I don't think Mrs. Bignotto was ever playing the game. She'd been cranking out a baby a year long before she heard a word about the derby, so the whole contest was just an added bonus to her. But then there was Mrs. Kenny, who was obviously playing to win and said outright that she was trying to make babies. And then you have Mrs. Clark. Mrs. Clark's situation was the most unsettling. It came out that Mrs. Clark's lover had drawn up a contract with her where he could get half her winnings if he impregnated her enough. Mrs. Clark's lover was also abusive. He'd given her a black eye, broke her door down, chased her out into the street after a fight. So maybe she didn't want to be pregnant as many times as she was. Maybe she was forced to. Here's Elizabeth. You sort of wonder, was she basically abused? Was she taken advantage of? Because if you think about also the kind of power dynamic that Miller set up between men and women. And at that time, like if you're partner or if your husband or your lover thought that if he got you pregnant over and over, that you might win millions of dollars. And she was a very young woman. And so you were sort of insinuating that maybe these women might have been coerced or, you know, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think it doesn't take a lot for someone to put together with this young woman and so many babies. And with this huge prize in 1933, it looked like Mrs. Bignotto was gonna win. Then in 1934, headlines read that Mrs. Kenney had taken the lead. In 1935, another woman, Mrs. Timlak, sped to the front. In 1936, Madame X was listed as a late entry, tied for second. All the while, the physical toll for these mothers was enormous. Mrs. Bignado suffered a hemorrhage near the end of her final pregnancy, and many of the Stork Derby mothers were in and out of the hospital for operations and transfusions. And all three mothers suffered the emotional toll of having stillborn babies during the race. Most of the women couldn't afford to have their children in hospitals, and so the infant mortality rate of the Derby babies was six times that of the national average. 34% of these babies died. But aside from an article or two, again, the press only saw these deaths in the context of the race. The headline in a 1936 Montreal paper was Stillborn infant may assure prize. Underneath, A stillborn child may assure Mrs. Matthew Kenny the prize in the Stork Derby. Under the will of late Charles Vancemiller. Her nearest competitor is believed to be Mrs. Joseph Bagnato. The race ended on Halloween, 1936. But at first it wasn't clear who'd won. Here's how our three competitors stood on that date. Mrs. Kenney claimed to have had 11 children. Mrs. Clark said she had 11 as well. Mrs. Bignotto had nine. But Mrs. Kenney and Mrs. Clark didn't walk away with the prize that easily. With Mrs. Clark the scandalous one who had tied for the largest number of children. The lawyers in charge of the estate had some questions about her case and raised the question of whether children born out of wedlock should count. This is where it was clear that there had been a huge oversight. Nobody had actually set rules for this contest at its beginning. Remember, Miller explained this whole contest in two sentences. And as well. So as the court saw it, there were nuances that needed to be figured out. Rules to be set, but of course, only after the fact of everything. After the babies had been born and the blood transfusions administered, a massive multi way court battle broke out. All of the contestants had to go to court to prove that they had the most children. Each woman had to lawyer up and go up against the lawyers for the executors of the estate. The fight went on for two years. And of course, now the rules would be determined in front of an audience to figure out if her illegitimate children would count. Mrs. Clark and her lover's abusive sexual history was scrutinized on the stand. He recounted his physical violence with her, admitted to giving her a black eye and busting down the door to her house and to the contract he drew up. When he mentioned the contract, the courtroom burst out into raucous, mocking laughter. And in fact, the lawyers regularly threw in crude jokes during the trial, soliciting giggles from the audience. In the end, it was decided that illegitimate children could not be counted within the Derby. And so Mrs. Clark's number got knocked down to five. She was out of the running. Then came Mrs. Kenney, the one who believed she was the winner and had carved statues of Miller. She'd also tied for 11, but apparently two of her children had not been properly registered. Probably because Mrs. Kenney was too poor to deliver her children in hospitals, she'd had them at home instead. That brought her count down to nine children, but no big deal, she was still in the running. Then the lawyers pointed out three of her children had been stillborn. Quick warning. I'm about to talk about a lot of traumatic births. Until this point, everyone had assumed that stillborn children would count for the Derby. Again, this hadn't been in the rules. And after all these women had carried these children to term. But now, at Mrs. Kenney's trial, lawyers for the executors of the estate started questioning that. And so Mrs. Kenney had to sit while a pack of lawyers argued around her about how legitimate her dead children were. They brought up doctors and had them give graphic descriptions of the stillbirths. If each baby breathed, if its heart ever beat, she had to relive the moments all over again. Mrs. Kenney cried throughout this and eventually ran from the courtroom. It was just all too much for her. And at one point she left the courtroom just screaming that she was being treated like a dog. And you know, there never was a sensitive portrait of this woman. It was all sort of caricature style. So I think the coverage just continued in that way. You know, the Newspaper report said she was shrieking, insinuated that she was drunk, and said during the scuffle, Mrs. Kenney dealt at least half a dozen hard blows on the arms and bodies of the officers, who showed great restraint in their tactics. In the end, it didn't help her case. A child born dead is not in truth a child, the judge wrote. It was that which might have been a child. Her count was knocked down to six. Mrs. Kenney was out of the running. Lastly, there was Mrs. Bignotto, who again had nine children, but one was stillborn and another was unregistered. Mrs. Bignotto suggested that there was some conspiracy with this. She said she'd registered the child herself at the parliament buildings. She was quoted as saying, if they can't find the record, it'll be just too bad for them up there. I will tear the parliament buildings apart before I give up. I'm supposed to be in the hospital now with another baby coming, but I'll stay on my feet until I drop or this is cleared up. But her protestations didn't sway the judge and she eventually did give up. After all, she did have a job and almost a dozen mouths to feed. At the end of two years, none of the three favorites wound up at the finish line. Four other women with nine babies each one. Each of these women walked away with what today would be about 2 million Canadian dollars or 1 1/2 million US dollars. Most were late comers who really only became candidates when the heavy hitters were eliminated. And these four women had something else in common. Here's Elizabeth. I mean, the families that won were white Protestant families who were essentially middle class and who had homes that when the report into them and describe the homes, it was always, you know, the clean and tidy home and the well kept this and that. You know, the forerunners through the whole race were working class people and unemployed people and they had varied ethnic backgrounds. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that these women didn't win. Maybe they didn't win because they didn't have the means to navigate the system as elegantly. Or maybe the judge who decided the contest had his finger on the scale. In its last four years, the public's view of the contest had turned as people saw how it played out. It had encouraged the poorest women to have the most children. That set alarm bells off for a big group of people in what was a growing and popular movement at the eugenics. Teddy Roosevelt was into eugenics. Alexander Graham Bell, W.E.B. du Bois, even Helen Keller, a refresher Eugenicist believed that in order to improve the human species, some people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. And yes, that's just as creepy as it sounds. At the end of the contest, they came forth in droves to say that the money shouldn't be given to any women. Here's Elizabeth. The social commentary was around, you know, who. Who are these people and should they be reproducing? They're not Canadian born. They're poor. They're not the right people. A minister, Rev. Claire Silcox, submitted written testimony against the participants as, quote, unspeakable women and argued that these poor children would eventually reduce wages and lower the standard of living. An editor for a Canadian newspaper said that the contest attracted, quote, those whose progeny would be of little use to the state. Elizabeth and Karen believe that this environment influenced the judge, that he eliminated on technicalities all the contestants who had not made the right kinds of babies. Here's Karen. Yeah, I do believe that it was intentional. I mean, because they went to such lengths to discredit those that were the others. The French Canadian Catholic, the woman with the illegitimate children, the Italian, you know, Catholic with an immigrant husband. It became a platform for them to send the message of, to use a modern phrase, stay in your lane. Like immigrants, Know their place. They were definitely trying to send a message. After the lawsuit took place, Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Kenney both filed appeals and both received settlements for the equivalent of 200,000 Canadian dollars each. Mrs. Bignato, the immigrant translator, walked away with nothing.
