(lively music) - Will you consider this?

Consider where you were if you were around here in March of 1987.

And it was a pretty, pretty historic day in Peoria, Illinois, and these two are the people who brought that historic day about Roz and Ron Helms.

And they are the parents of the famous Peoria Quintuplets.

I remember that day.

You remember it all too well.

Okay, so let's start with you guys.

First of all, your love story, how you met, okay?

Who wants to tell it?

- I'll let her.

- Okay.

- [Christine] Well, but today's our anniversary.

- Today, actually, so we're taping this on September 26th.

- Yep.

- Well, happy anniversary.

- Yep, 44 years.

- Holy cow.

That's longer than I've been married, and I'm a lot older, but I say nothing.

Oh, go ahead.

- Well, we were babies.

- [Christine] You were definitely babies, okay?

So tell us the love story.

- I went to the University of Iowa, and he was already there.

I transferred from Western Kentucky, and then a friend of ours said I should join this singing group that he happened to already be in.

Auditioned and made it the second year I was there at Iowa.

And so, we were in this swing choir together.

And we became very, very good friends, and did a lot of stuff as a group, but also independently.

And the next thing you know, we were in love.

- Together, in Love and married.

Now, you're from here, Dirk McGinnis was, yeah?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

That's where you get the singing from.

- Well, yes, some, and from his family, we are very... McGinnisses, we're very musical.

- Musical, okay, and are you from here, too?

- No, I grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

- Okay, so you're one of those.

- And then, I didn't finish college at Iowa.

I bounced around from subject to subject, and didn't do well in any of 'em.

I was one of those people that did great in high school, studies, but when you got to college, didn't do well.

- [Christine] Partying was a little fun too, then?

- Yes, it was much more fun.

- Okay, well, I'm glad Roz brought you around then.

- So, Roz had a job here at- - WMBD.

- WMBD-TV.

And I worked there for a summertime replacement job.

And then I got involved with the restaurant business right at, the week after we got married.

So, next week will be 44 years with me at Alexander's.

- [Christine] So you've been doing that a long time.

Yeah, good for you.

- Yeah.

- So, you get married, and you start working in Peoria, Illinois.

And now, you're with Alexander's Steakhouse.

- Right.

- And Famous Dave's, and- - It used to be Famous Dave's.

It used to be Vonachen's Old Place, The Grill on Fulton.

- I still miss those- - Yeah, we do as well.

And we tried unsuccessfully for several years, trying to have a child.

And we were in Bloomington-Normal, running the Alexander's at that time.

And we went to Dr.

O'Neill, and got on a fertility medicine that he'd only had twins with.

- (laughs) Twins.

And we thought, okay, well- - Twins will be okay.

- Twins, we can handle.

- His dad was a twin.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- We can handle twins, so let's go for it.

- And- - Technology wasn't what it is today, right?

- Okay, okay.

- Go ahead.

(laughs) - All right, your turn, Roz, go ahead.

Tell the story then.

- So, we tried one month on this medication.

It was not fun and very painful.

I looked like a drug addict 'cause I had to have blood drawn- - All the time.

- One, two, three times a day.

- Really?

- And so, I was black and blue here.

And then, depending on the results of those blood tests, I would take injections.

- So they knew when everything was ready to go?

- Right.

- Okay.

- So, the first go-round of all of that, it just didn't work.

And boy, were we despondent.

- Sure.

- I mean, it was, when you're focused on that every day and you're going through all this every day, it's pretty impactful.

- Yeah.

- And so, our doctor was optimistic, and he said, "Let's give it another go."

And we got through the end of that session.

And I'm like, "I am never doing this again."

And yeah, I was never doing this again because it worked.

- Okay.

- And we thought, at the time, it was just gonna be two.

- Oh, twins.

Sure.

- So, about eight weeks later, Roz was, every day, just not feeling well and super sick.

- Oh, the first three months sometimes, yeah.

- Her hormone levels were super elevated compared to somebody who's having twins.

So they sent us from Normal over here, to St.

Francis Hospital to have a sonogram because they had better equipment than they had in Bloomington.

- [Roz] They equate it to a Ford versus a Cadillac.

(laughs) - Okay, got it.

Got it.

- So we were- - I like both.

(laughs) - In the sonogram room, and a lady that went to high school with Roz was doing the procedure, and she's counting one, two, three, four.

She wouldn't say the word five, but she's mouthing it.

- When she left the room- - Yeah.

- Her jaw was on the- - Ron goes, "What did she say?"

(Christine laughs) And I said, "She said five."

- Dr.

My God, Dr.

Ack walks in, and says, "Well, she found five, let's see if there's six in there or not."

- Oh my word.

- So, from that point on, Roz was on immediate bed rest, and we were going to St.

Francis every week to get Sonograms.

- Sonograms.

- To update the kids.

- Did you also need more blood draws, too, then?

- No, pretty much done at that point.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- But just bed rest.

- Bed rest.

- But then the trip over here, not very restful.

- Well, it was pretty exciting.

Because I wasn't doing anything, all of a sudden.

I worked two jobs, and I was with people all day long, and suddenly I'm, me and the dog.

- Aw.

(laughs) - And so, yeah.

- [Christine] I shouldn't laugh, but, oh, my gosh.

- Well, and she was so attuned, if I made the wrong cough, she'd run to the bathroom 'cause she knew I was gonna be sick.

- Poor puppy.

- Aw.

- So, anyway- - But they do have that sense.

- They transferred us to Peoria.

- Yeah, and- - Before the kids were born, so we were living on Moss Avenue.

- [Christine] In your grandparents' old home, your parents' home?

- Yeah.

- [Ron] Where we got married.

- [Christine] Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

- And so, then- - February came along, and we attended a friend's wedding at the Pere Marquette.

And then, right after that, Roz went into St.

Francis Hospital to stay, to be monitored on a daily basis, so that, in case anything was happening, they could deal with it right away.

- Right, immediately.

- So, they were doing- So this was the end of February, like February- - Mid-February- - 20, oh, mid, okay, All right.

- So they were doing... They weren't doing full sonograms, but they were doing quickies, and they were just making sure there were five heartbeats every day.

And then, once a week, I still was having the full-blown sonograms.

- So, what was your mindset during that?

I mean, you're in this, you're the support team, so, but still, there's emotions involved, so- - Right.

- You were really there to support her, and then, Roz, what was your mindset then going, it's like, "Wow, five heartbeats and," you know?

- Well.

- And you're counting 'em all, - You know, relief because there's five heartbeats.

But then, during the next 24 hours, you'd start to build anxiety because, okay, here we go again.

And then he'll would be happy again, and then it would be nervous and happy and- - Right.

Okay.

- It was long.

- Well, and pregnant women go through a lot of those emotions anyway, so, but you had it by times five.

- And all these people coming in to talk to me, you know?

(Christine laughs) Prenatal doctor, my O-B, the nurses all on staff for the perinatal department.

Sisters would come in and want to have worship with me.

- Sister Canisia, she was- - Yeah.

But it was mostly Sister Helen.

- Yeah.

- Is that right?

- Yeah, it was mostly Sister Helen.

- But at this point in time, she's - - Out, yeah.

- Very big.

Right.

And she's very uncomfortable.

So, she's constantly having to roll back and forth.

- Right, so you don't get bed sores and things, too.

- Well, just so I can breathe.

- No.

- Just because all could breathe.

- Oh, my gosh, oh, yeah, the pressure.

- Yeah.

- I sat.

I would lay in bed like this just to have my arms up to give my lungs some room.

- To give you a diaphragm a little bit of room.

- Because I had one here, one here, one here, one here, one here.

And that they would say the big boy.

And they would call Shannon mid, and they knew Bevin.

- Okay.

- And we knew Meredith.

But we didn't know Samantha.

We never knew until she was born.

- [Christine] She was behind Ben?

- She just was- - She was little.

- Very... - Ladylike.

(Christine laughs) - Yes, she just didn't care to share any of that.

- Okay.

(laughs) And so, they developed personalities in the womb?

- Yes.

(laughs) - They did for us.

Because we were grabbing onto everything we could, because we didn't know if it would be as successful.

- Exactly, well, when it comes to counting five, oh, even with one, you just never know.

All right, so.

(claps) Then, March, what, did you go into labor, or did they decide this- - No, I did.

- Okay.

- I started tractions, and I didn't know what, the only sign I had was my ears turned red, which was very weird, but I didn't, everything was stretched out of- - Right.

So you couldn't keep track of all that?

- No, there was just no muscle control left.

So I would have a contraction.

They would, with the belt, monitor it.

- Right.

- But I couldn't feel it.

I didn't know.

And they were trying, that was that morning, trying to stop it.

They used medication, and it just didn't, it slowed it down, but it didn't stop it.

- So, they were due when, I don't remember.

- They were due May 28th, which was when the Dionne Quintuplets were born.

- Okay, all right, yeah.

Those famous ones from, that was the '40s?

- Very first quintuplets in the world.

- To all survive.

- Survive, right.

So that was in my head that we could at least make it there.

And so, the goal was 28 weeks at that time.

28 weeks was when the kids would develop with a surfactant.

- Their lungs.

- And they would be able to handle that.

So, when our kids were eventually born, they are still the smallest surviving set prior to our artificial surfactant.

- Okay, wow, interesting.

- Yeah.

- Okay, so that was 37 years ago.

- 38 years ago.

- 38 years ago.

- Yeah.

- Okay, that's right, yeah.

I'm trying to get the math right.

And what are they all doing now, then?

So, Shannon was the first one.

- Yep, so- - And how much did they weigh?

They each weighed, like a lot?

- Shannon was two pounds, one ounce.

Ben was- - 1,15.

- 15, Bevin was two pounds three.

- And Samantha and Me- - Samantha and Meredith were one-pound-12.

- Okay.

Gosh.

- We were the 13th set of surviving Quintuplets in the United States at that time.

And the smallest set of surviving Quintuplets at that time.

- Yeah.

- How many there are now?

I have no idea.

(laughs) - I have no idea.

You don't have time to think about it, you got five to think about, and everything else.

- Well, 13's still the number, but I, something like 32nd in the world.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Interesting.

I guess you have to look that up in the- - I have no idea.

- We don't care.

(everybody laughs) - So, you're good.

(laughs) - We're way past that.

- So, Shannon is the oldest, and she's down in Texas?

- Yes, Shannon lives in Dallas, and she works for a recruiting firm.

- Job-hunting firm.

- Yeah.

Recruiting firm, and she's been down there about 12 years.

Loves it.

- He has family there.

- Okay.

- I have a sister who lives there, so- - [Christine] So, it's not like she was just off on her own.

- No, after she graduated from Illinois State, didn't have a real good job here in Peoria, my sister- - And communications.

- Yep.

- Okay, right, okay.

- My sister said, "Come on down to Dallas, we'll put you up for six months.

If you find a job, great.

And if you don't, you can move home."

- Right.

- And my sister had three jobs for her in the very first week she was there.

- Wow.

Okay.

- She knows everybody in the world.

- Okay, well that's good.

- And it's good for us to have somebody there to keep an eye on her, and- - Not now, but, yeah.

- But even so- - At that time.

- Right.

Okay, then Ben.

- Oh, Bevin was- - Bevin up in Chicago in Buffalo Grove, and she became a nurse.

- Through the OSF School of Nursing.

- Awesome.

- And her first job was at the NICU unit where they were born.

- Imagine that, okay.

- Which was really, really special for us.

- And I bet for her, too.

- Just, well, to be able to tell a parent that I was here.

- I was here, yeah, exactly.

All right, good for her.

- So, she's nursing up in the Chicago area, and then Meredith is- - Who we call Mimi.

- Yep, Mimi- - She changed her name.

- She did, back to Meredith?

- No, she changed it.

- Oh, did she?

- No, when she was little, she was the one that started calling herself Mimi.

- Okay, all right.

- Well, that was an improvement 'cause she was calling herself Bob.

- Okay.

(everybody laughs) - Yeah.

- I see where you're coming from, okay, got that.

(laughs) - And so, she and her husband live over in East Peoria, and she works at Timber Ridge, is that right?

- Yeah.

- At the Apostolic Christian Home over in Morton.

And then, Samantha is at home with us, and works for me at Alexander's Steakhouse.

- And she was the littlest when she was in the hospital the longest.

- A year.

- Yeah, a year, okay.

- Yeah, Ben and Shannon came home four and a half months after they were born.

And that's when it got hard because- - Yeah, no kidding.

- You had two at home that you're responsible for, and you have three in the hospital still doing the up and down, up and down- - Every day- - Medically.

- [Christine] Right.

- And you have the pediatrician saying, "Don't expose them to lots of people, let's keep them home where the environment's safer."

And yet, I needed to get to the hospital.

They had to come with me, so.

- [Christine] Right.

(laughs) - So, yeah, and then Bevin came home next.

- For a week.

- And she came home with nursing care.

It was cheaper to have nursing care at home than to have her- - In the hospital.

Right.

- So we then introduced another person into our house every eight hours.

- Okay.

(laughs) - And then she came back to the hospital with some health issues, very short period of time.

Came home again.

- Well, Mimi came home in the meantime.

- Oh, Mimi came home next, and she came home again with nursing care.

So, Mimi and Bevin shared a nurse as well as us.

- An LPN.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- So a nurse and an LPN for two babies.

And then, Ron and I, for two babies.

- Yeah, and then, and Sammy was still in the hospital?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

Wow.

And you survived.

And then, Ben.

So Ben's still in town.

- Yep, and Ben works at ICC in the IT department.

- Okay.

- Been there a little over a year and really enjoys it.

- And he was at Best Buy for a while, wasn't he?

He was like a cashier or something, and just always smiling and having a great time, so.

- Well, you know, TV, electronics, he knows all that stuff with his degree, so, and he felt very comfortable there.

But it wasn't steady hours, and yeah, they were cutting and cutting, and he was nervous.

He needed to find something.

- He also worked for ADT, he worked for- - ATS.

- Oh, ATS, I'm sorry, right, and then Caterpillar.

- Yeah.

State Farm.

- State Farm.

Caterpillar, now he's at ICC.

- ICC, okay.

- All in IT.

- Okay, so we think he's landed for a while.

- Hopefully.

- Okay, does he still live at home?

- Yes.

- Okay, all right, and so does Sam.

- Yes.

- Okay.

All right.

And then, from what I understand, there's a grandchild on the way after all this, but it's just one, right?

Not five, just one heartbeat.

- Yes.

- Okay.

So, that's pretty exciting.

- That is.

- So next March, we'll have a grandson.

- Okay, a boy.

- [Christine] And what are they coming up with names yet, or anything, or?

- They're working on it.

(Christine laughs) It's a- - But it's always a surprise.

- It's not gonna be Ron.

(laughs) - It's not, okay, oh darn.

- That's good, that's fine.

- So with all this going on, I mean, you know, a first baby, you're losing a lot of sleep and everything.

So when everybody's finally home and you have nurses and everything, how did you guys sleep?

How did you survive?

- I had no problem.

(everybody laughs) - Fair enough.

- That's true.

- I have never had a problem with that.

- I drank six Diet Pepsis a day 'cause I don't drink coffee, I don't.

I wasn't drinking tea then.

And so, I had a lot of caffeine.

I slept about four hours a night.

And when my chore at the end of the night, of course, was laundry, and- - [Christine] And that was the never-ending story.

- We had a pile like this every day with, you know, if we had Samantha came home, the medications and stuff were not quite settling to her stomach.

And a lot of emesis.

- There's a lot of emesis - Yeah.

- And so, we changed clothes, we changed bedding a lot.

And Bevin and Mimi, too, for that first maybe six months.

And then they settled.

Everybody settled down.

It got a lot better, but the laundry never seemed to shrink.

(Christine laughs) (Ron laughs) So, I'd go to bed, and if something happened, the nurses would wrap on our door and let us know that one of the other children needed us.

'Cause we would close the door, 'cause they were walking back and forth in the house, up and down the stairs all night long.

'Cause that was their job.

- So you never wanted to have any more children?

(everybody laughs) - No.

- Because you were afraid of what might happen.

(everybody laughs) - One pregnancy and done.

I told you I was never doing that again, and- - Right.

- The likelihood of us being able to conceive on our own was nil, so.

- Mm-hmm.

- But we did welcome 13 foreign exchange students over the years in our house.

- Yeah, and I was wondering about that.

Now, you know, as life wasn't crazy enough, you decided to bring these people in, and you're still friends with many of them from all over the world.

- Yes.

- So how did that come about?

- I was in Peoria Pops Orchestra, playing my viola.

And one of the girls who played in the orchestra with me said, "I am desperate.

I've got these kids coming from France, and they're gonna be here in like two weeks."

- Yeah.

- And I need beds for like five of 'em.

I've got 25 kids coming, and I still need to place five kids.

- For a three-week period.

- Yeah, it was very short.

- Okay.

- And I thought, "Oh, gosh, we can do that.

We had the space."

- So the kids were still home?

Your kids were still home, or this is once they've gone off- - [Roz] When they were five years old.

- Okay.

- They were five years old.

- I guess I missed that in the Christmas letters.

(everybody laughs) - Impossible.

(everybody laughs) - So, that I sent them, we'd been in "People Magazine" by that point.

So I grabbed a copy, and a letter explaining who we were, what we were, and letting him say, "I don't wanna do this.

I can't go here."

- Right.

- But I think his mom didn't give him a choice.

(everybody laughs) Actually, she's pretty wonderful.

And he came over anyway, knowing what we were a family of and how busy we were.

And he loved five little kids crawling all over him.

- Wow.

- Yeah, and that was a good experience.

He came back twice more, and we've been there- - On his own - Once, yeah.

- Okay, great.

- And he has three little girls, and heartbreakingly, one sent a video that said, "I have a grandmother in America who I've never met who loves me very much."

- Ow.

(laughs) - Oh, ow.

- Okay, so when will we get over there to visit?

- Probably in the next couple years.

- Okay.

Once you have your grandson and he's all settled and you can try to sneak away from them, and he'll give you guilt, too, believe me.

(everybody laughs) They know how to do it.

It's like dogs with those puppy eyes, you know?

All right, so what's in store then for the kids now?

I mean, they know their history.

They know how miraculous their being is.

And do you ever discuss it?

I know you go on a lot of vacations together as a family, and I know you love Disney.

- They don't care.

None of that means anything to them.

- [Christine] Really.

- They are five separate people, which is how we wanted them to be raised.

We did not want them, the group, the Quints, the whatever.

- Well, they were for the first several years, 'cause that's just how we knew 'em, and that they survived, so, okay.

- And it got to the point, Christine, where, you know, we did several news shows, whether it was Jenny Jones or what was her- - Joan Rivers.

- "Joan Rivers Show."

- Joan Lunden.

- We would, when they got to like eight, nine years old.

And at that point, we started saying, "Do you want to do this?"

- Okay.

- So that they would vote on whether or not they would want to go and do a TV show, or interviews, or whatever.

- That's wonderful.

You didn't just force them.

They had a voice, yeah.

- And it, you know, this was way before Reality TV.

And thank God, we didn't do anything like "Jon & Kate Plus 8."

(Christine laughs) - Whoa.

- We weren't interested in the fame of it at all.

- Mm-mm.

- And we are very, very fortunate to have had this happen here in Peoria.

- With our medical community.

- I mean- - And at the time, we had five neonatal doctors when the kids were born.

There was, you know, you remember there was that staff of 33 people, and they planned how everything was gonna work.

And that's exactly what happened.

It was all planned.

Every, that was in the olden days, pagers, everybody had a special pager just for that.

- Right.

- And that's how it worked.

- And not only the fact that you had St.

Francis Hospital, which has been- - A staple here, yeah.

- Yes.

Otherwise, we would've had to go to Chicago, or we would've had to go to St.

Louis.

And I can't imagine the hassle for us, and the issues, especially when the first year- - They could have been at all the places.

- I mean, every week, every day, you had four kids that were good, and one was crashing.

And then you'd have four crashing, and one was good.

- Right.

- And so, you were constantly just running back and forth between home and work, and in the hospital because of everyday going on.

- Exactly, because you were parents.

- Right, and then- - Well, and as Dr.

Miller said, we were very lucky because our issues were all lung issues.

We didn't have heart, digestive, brain issues.

Those other locations would've been ideal if that had been our issue.

- Right.

- But at the time, it was lungs, and he had that down.

- He did, and we had the NICU.

So I'm told we have only one minute.

You have to come back again.

We have to hear more of your story.

That you survived all this.

That you still are together.

- That's rare.

- You love one another, you love all those kids.

- See the little hearts coming on in my eyes?

- I can see it.

- Yeah.

- And- - We're very blessed.

- You are definitely blessed.

- Extremely blessed.

- And we're blessed to have you in our community, so that you can share this kind of story with other people.

All right, thanks again, friends, for being here.

I hope you enjoyed hearing their story a little bit about everything they went through.

And (indistinct) see you again, soon.

- Be well.

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