The chance of a sheep giving birth to quadruplets is about one in 500. The chance of a woman giving birth to quadruplets without fertility treatment is about one in 750,000. The chance of quadruplets, of the human or sheep variety, meeting another set of quadruplets, is incalculable.
However, two sets of North Dakota quadruplets had a chance to spend the day playing together in 1949. The human kids, Connie, Cleo, Clair, and Clayton Brown, were the first surviving set of quadruplets born in North Dakota. The four happy and healthy lambs were born on this day in 1949 on the farm of Clarence Anderson near Walcott. The eight youngsters got to spend a day frolicking in August. Mr. Anderson also had three sets of triplet lambs born that year.
The Brown quadruplets of Leonard were not the first set of quadruplets born in North Dakota. Dr. Raymond Stough delivered quadruplets, three boys and a girl, to the Reilly family in LaMoure in 1905. Unfortunately none of the babies survived. The Brown children were born in Fargo in 1941 to Ella and Nick. The Brown quadruplets were four of nine siblings. In 1957, quadruplet girls were born to the Meier family in Elgin, but only three of the girls survived infancy. The first set of identical quadruplets born in North Dakota made their appearance in 1981 in Emerado. The four boys were born to the Arnold family. The chance of having identical quadruplets is one in 2.7 million. These boys had two older siblings. Many more sets of quadruplets have been born in North Dakota since fertility treatments has become more prevalent. A set was born in 2019 in Fargo. However, quadruplets are still a rare event. In 2018, in the US, only 115 sets of quadruplets were born, compared to 3,525 sets of triplets and over 123,000 sets of twins.
North Dakota missed having the first set of surviving quintuplets in the United States by about 35 miles. The Fischer quintuplets were born in Aberdeen, SD, in 1963. However, one of the quintuplets did live for a time in Fargo.
Dakota Datebook by Trista Raezer-Stursa
