Multiples: The Page Quadruplets

Out of curiosity, I was looking up multiple births and realized that there is not a lot of information on the Page quadruplets, the first recorded quads in America. This makes me think maybe their parents didn't make a spectacle out of them- which is amazing. 

I learned about the Page quadruplets on Wikipedia- you can read the page here. They only have one sentence regarding the babies- "The Page quadruplets (born January 8, 1890, in Redwater, Texas) were the first recorded quadruplets born in the United States". That's it. No mention of the sex of the babies or names. So, I decided to do my own research.

                                     (Picture taken from Findagrave.com)

Meet the Page Quadruplets- 4 girls- Anne, Geneva, Jessie and Nora. 

I was able to find quite a bit of information on the Page family, however, it was not as happy as I had hoped. It appears that the parents did take their children on tours for fame. Nora, the 4th quad paid the price of this publicity at the age of 6 months when she contracted the measles and died. The family had been traveling in St. Joseph, Missouri to show off the quads for cash. 

Anne and Geneva lived into adulthood and had families of their own, but the 3rd quad- Jessie died at the age 11. I'm not sure what killed her, whether it was illness or accident, but my hunch is an illness because the girls' younger brother Raymond died the same day Jessie did. He was 8. 

One thing that was really shocking about the Page family was that they already had 2 children when they had the girls- Herbert and Ernestine- TWINS! Joseph Herbert Page and Nannie Ernestine Page were born in 1886 and were only 4 years old when their parents had 4 more children. Can you imagine having 6 children in 5 years? LOL No thank you! And, as I mentioned earlier, the family had a 7th child, Raymond, who was born in 1893, 3 years after the girls.

Page Family: 

Before I end this post, I did want to mention that I am in no way related to the Page family. ❤