Last week Annette, now a Montreal housewife, described her incredible childhood as a Dionne Quintuplet. This week she remembers the over-protection and hyper-prudishness of her teen-age years and tells how, ultimately, she's managed to overcome the unreasoning fear of people and the world that those years left in her.

As a former Dionne Quintuplet - now a 33-year-old wife and mother - I have had to adjust to one common gesture that makes me want to flee. The gesture is this: perfect strangers stopping me on the sidewalk to measure with their hands a few inched apart. "I remember seeing you when you were just this size", they invariably say. Just as invariably, I am filled with terror and my impulse is to run and hide. Instead, I am gradually learning to smile, to let the curious stare, and to accept their gesture as a normal human response - almost as a compliment, expressing their nostalgia for the affection that a world once lavished freely on five babies. And yet I must confess it is still a struggle to overcome my unreasoning fear, my distrust of others, my desire to escape without being recognized; and I pray that my three sons will not have to endure similar pains of adjustment.

"I have to live," I keep telling myself. "I can't change other people. I can change myself." I think this compulsion to cloister myself developed most acutely when I was a teen-ager secluded in what we called the family Big House. For we Quintuplets ran the gamut between two extremes. As young children, we were public showpieces overly exposed before an adoring world. As maturing girls, we were perpetual adolescents overly sheltered inside a shatter-proof cocoon. Though I cannot agree with all the extreme precautions they took, I sympathize with Mom and Dad. They did their best in the face of abnormal pressures that would have bewildered more sophisticated parents.

We were encased in a massive yellow-brick citadel, ringed behind an eight-foot-high, iron-spike fence. Police bodyguards dogged our every step outside. When we were taken to the movies five nights a week in North Bay, or on the rare occassions when we were allowed to go shopping in a troupe, we were advised to shun crowds and disguise ourselves behind dark sunglasses for fear we might be recognized. We were kept insulated in an ascetic, hyper-prudish atmosphere. A statue of the Madonna was placed at the foot of the stairs, and we were obliged to stoop and kiss her feet whenever we passed by. Like my sisters, I hated my braided Shirley Temple pigtails, but was not allowed to cut them off until I was 16. I was compelled to wear flat-heeled shoes and uniform-like black tunics and was forbidden to drink coffee or experiment with lipstick until I was 20. I so longed to be an individual, not a carbon copy of my sisters, that I remember vainly trying to dye my auburn hair auburn at 18. Sex was a taboo word, and romance out of the question. Our future held out the only two choices open to us: to become a nun or a spinster. I recall then seeing a film, Margie, in which Jeanne Crain falls in love and has the natural desire to marry her college beau, and I remember thinking: "That life is not for me."

So it was that I had never dated a boy when I first met my future husband, Gerry. I was 20 then, a music student at Collège Marguerite Bourgeoys in suburban Westmount of Montreal. Gerry was 21, a philosophy student at the Collè de St. Laurent in Montreal's suburban Ville St. Laurent. Around the corner from his college was the Hôpital Notre Dame de L'Esperance, where my sisters, Yvonne and Cécile, were nurses in training. It so happened that Gerry came to visit his older brother, Gilles, who was in the hospital recovering from appendicitis. My sisters introduced us, and we were immediately drawn to each other. Gerry now recollects that he was attracted by what he calls my douceur - gentleness. The flatterer says, "I fell in love with those eloquent greenish-brown eyes, and those high Audrey Hepburn cheekbones, and the sweetest smile I had ever seen on a girl's gentle face." On my part, I recall smiling because I was too flustered for words. He struck me as being tall and handsome, with his crewcut blond hair and joking blue eyes, and I felt - and still feel - he is the most self-confident optimist who ever lived. "Aren't you afraid to be alone with a man?" he joked when he next met me in the parlor of Collège Marguerite Bourgeoys. "No", I replied half-seriously. "Because I have the nuns here to protect me."

My reserve melted when Gerry invited me out on my first date - to a movie to hear Mario Lanza sing in The Student Prince. After that, we met regularly. We would hold a secret rendezvous at the Clear Fountain Cafe in Ville St. Laurent, holding hands over our chocolate sundaes, and the go for long walks in the snow. Being in love with him was like being reborn. He helped me realize I couldn't go on forever fleeing in panic from the stares of the curious. Together, we began visiting art exhibits, the theatre, concerts. He taught me to appreciate the philosophy of Jean Jaques Rousseau, the poetry of Lamartine, the excitement of watching a championship hockey game. Above all, I discovered that Gerry was one of eight boys and two girls brought up behind a dry-cleaning store in Drummondville, Que., and that his family were all wonderfully normal and wonderfully happy together. When we decided to get married, after seeing one another for three years, I vowed to myself: "I would like to have a family like his."

It was not quite that easy. The Quintuplet legacy of fame and alleged fortune loomed as an omnipresent barrier. Gerry, who had switched to a commercial course at University of Montreal, found that out when he applied for a $300-a-month sales job at the Beneficial Finance Company. Leo R. Caron, the company's field supervisor, told him, "Frankly, I'm dubious about the wisdom of hiring you. In this job you have to work hard. And since you're about to marry into the Dionne money, you can afford to live leisurely on easy street for the rest of your life." Gerry, who is proud of his independence, exploded, "If you think I can't stand on my own feet in the business world, I don't want to work for you. I'm not looking for a cushy sinecure. I intend to support my wife and family through my own efforts." Mr. Caron, who is now assistant vice-president of the company, today holds up Gerry as an exemplary branch manager who has won his promotions through sheer hard work. In fact, Gerry's dedication to his job is the sole cause of our rare domestic spats. I confess I sometimes lose my temper when Gerry phones me to say he's working overtime again, and "Please keep supper warm, Netta, until I get home at nine."

To dispel the myth once and for all, I am neither a millionaire nor a pauper. A little less than $750,000 remains in our Quintuplet joint trust fund. My sisters and myself were entitled to receive a lump sum at the age of 31. Two other instalments can be released, at our discretion, when we reach 39 and 45. The last payment will leave about one-third of the capital intact, to be shared among our children. Gerry and I maintain a strict budget. Since we don't believe in going to nightclubs or squandering on cocktail parties, we live modestly. On special occassions, we'll splurge on a big dinner out, complete with fine French food and wines. We try to go to the movies twice a week (divided between the Hollywood musicals that I adore and the psychological dramas that Gerry prefers) and we like attending the ballet or an opera at the Place des Arts in Montreal. Gerry has invested most of my share of the trust fund in stocks and bonds. Last year we planned spending a little of it on a trip to Paris, for I have always yearned to visit the City of Light. Instead, I contributed toward the construction of a two-storey, Swiss-style, cedar cottage in Drummondville, designed by Gerry, that cost some $27,000. We go there every weekend, water-skiing in the summer, skimming along the ice over the St. Francois River in our snowmobile in the winter. I do all the housekeeping myself, which includes looking after the 14 beds we acquired in case relatives or friends visit us.

If anything, I am overly frugal with money. Gerry likes teasing me about the simplicity of my tastes. Though I smoke cigarettes now and enjoy the occassional gin and tonic, I go to the beauty parlor perhaps only once every few weeks. I wear a trace of peach or coral lipstick, a dab of light face powder and white nailpolish. My jewelry consists largely of ebony necklaces and bracelets hand-carved by my sister, Yvonne. My wardrobe is made up of 10 dresses, none costing more than $25, almost all a plain utilitarian black. I'd like to buy more expensive, frilly clothes for myself, but I'd feel guilty doing it. I always think of my children, and the come first. Gerry thinks I'm to permissive with our sons. I can't help myself. I show my affection openly and with no favoritism; I refer to them all with the term of endearment, "keekee"; and I can't find it in my heart to scold them. I want them to feel they belong in the house. I don't want them to reproach me some day, thinking, "Our mother held us back, so that we could not enjoy a rich, full life." I pride myself on my candor with them. When each of my sons was born, the first question I asked the doctor was: "Is he normal?" I then resolved I would never play the hypocrite with them; never warp them with falsehood. I intentionally breast-fed each infant in front of the next oldest. Watching me perform my natural biological function, they proceeded to ask me questions about sex, and I found it simple to answer them honestly.

Though we attend the Catholic Church regularly, I don't make a fetish of forcing the kids to kneel in prayer at home. I don't want my children to be taught the love of God the way a soldier is drilled, and surely religion is not a superficial, external thing. In time of trouble, I would like their prayers to come spontaneously from the heart. Gerry is the disciplinarian of the family. He makes sure the kids don't play too roughly with girls; that they don't speak too loudly when dining at their separate table; that they say "please" and "thank you" when receiving rewards for having performed their chores. Jean-Francois, our oldest, is also the most aggressive. A natural leader, he is a husky boy who likes to play tricks on his cousin, Claude, and tends to get into too many fistfights with his schoolmates. When he persisted in disobeying his teacher, Gerry was obliged to spank him three times. However, Gerry found a more effective punishment was to deprive him of the things he likes. "No ride on the snowmobile, no bicycling and no holding my moose-hunting Remington rifle until you learn to respect the rights of others." The worst punishment is to deprive him of music. He is an enthusiastic student when I give him piano lessons; he is also taking a course in playing the recorder and loves to play Mozart sonatas.

Charlie, who attends kindergarten part of the day, is more docile and obedient. A highly sensitive boy, he cries if Gerry speaks too loudly to him. He willingly performs his duty of keeping the rubbers and galoshes in the vestibule in neat order. As a reward, I allow him to look at Batman or dance the twist.
Eric is a bon vivant. A joyous boy, he gets pleasure when I play the piano and sing operatic arias for him, and he is quick to learn when I play English language records on the hi-fi gramophone. Like Gerry, all my boys make friends easily, for they are endowed with the gift of liking people and trusting them.

It has been harder for me to acquire that gift. As part of his program to make me more outgoing, Gerry persuaded me to visit New York City two years ago on behalf of the publicity campaign for the James Brough book, We Were Five. I submitted to 32 press and TV interviews in one week, and I'll never forget the jubilation I felt when it was all over. Gerry claims I danced a little jig all the way from Rockefeller Center back to the Americana Hotel while singing my victory chant: "I knew I had to do it. I had to prove I could do it. And now I've done it - come out of my shell!"

Just one step remains before I can conquer my shyness completely: To tell my sons about my past. Though I have a dozen scrapbooks containing photographs of my sons' year-by-year growth, I have retained no pictures of my own childhood. The only memento I have kept of those painful years is the crib I used to sleep in, bearing the pink engraving that reads: "Que le bon Jésus vous garde" - "May the good Lord watch over you." My youngest son sleeps in it now. Eric has never asked me about it. But if he does one day in the future, perhaps I will give him this confession that I have written, and he will read for himself the strange story that happened long ago when his mother was a Dionne Quintuplet.