As aging adults, they sued the province for compensation for the hijacking of their lives and the dissipation of their money. When they were finally paid, one sibling’s share was stolen by her son, who then disappeared.

For North Bay, population 54,000, the quintuplets brought economic salvation in the 1930s. But other than the log house, a visitor will search in vain for any commemoration of the quintuplets — even a roadside plaque.

The house, like its former inhabitants, has been through a lot. A hotel owner bought it in 1962 and moved it from the family’s land near Corbeil, a hamlet outside North Bay, to a spot on the highway at the south end of the city, where it was opened as a museum. When its sale was threatened in 1985, public pressure prompted the city to buy it and move it again, to a site operated by the chamber of commerce, with a tourist office and a place to pump out recreational-vehicle sewage.

Two years ago, the chamber told the city that it was no longer interested in operating the site. The city padlocked the house and swiftly found a buyer for the land. Now, with no appetite to use tax money to pay for the museum, it says the house has to go.