Dolores Seifert, mother of Seifert quads, dies

'Oh let us hike to Sleepy Eye in Minnesota,

Can any other village vie with Sleepy Eye in anecdota,

In Sleepy Eye they multiply and beat the birth rate quota.

Thus loyally, they glorify the State of Minnesota.

In such a town as Sleepy Eye, such history can make.

There surely is no alibi for one called Wide Awake.'

-"Rockabye, Sleepy Eye Babies Will Pop," as it appeared in a Chicago newspaper, date unknown

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

SLEEPY EYE -- The rural Sleepy Eye woman who made Minnesota history and gained national attention 53 years ago by giving birth to quadruplets (three girls and a boy), died Monday at Divine Providence Home at the age of 91.

Dolores Seifert was 37 and already had six older children, including twins, when she gave birth to the quads, Monica, Marie, Martha and Michael, at Sleepy Eye Hospital. At the time, there were only 11 sets of surviving quadruplets in the U.S. and none in Minnesota.

The odds of quads being born 50 years ago were one in one trillion. The odds are better now due to fertility drugs and advanced neonatal technology.

One of her twin boys, Lewis, 68, of New Ulm, recalled the day on their Stark Township dairy farm when his mother had to go to the hospital just before the quads were born.

"We were building a barn the day she went to the hospital," Lewis said. "It was a busy life. It seemed there were always people coming and going or the quads were going somewhere."

Indeed. The quads were a Minnesota State Fair attraction their first two summers. Viewers paid 25 cents each to see them enclosed in glass.

They appeared on Twin Cities television and radio stations. A Chicago newspaper reporter wrote a poem about them and a Minnesota polka band wrote a polka about them.

The Seiferts put wooden boxes in front of their home for visitors to climb and peer inside their home when the babies played on the porch. The quads were in many parades. Their birthday was often celebrated by the entire community.

Lewis recalled growing up on the dairy farm with two dozen milk cows and nine other brothers and sisters.

"We had lots of hands as everybody helped do things like milk cows, bale hay and do dishes," Lewis said.

That notion grew into another big event when the quads turned 50 three years ago. Martha (Andersen), now of Albert Lea, found other quads on line and invited them all to celebrate at the Orchid Inn in Sleepy Eye.

Andersen found 27 sets of quads in Minnesota. Most of them were born in the 1990s. Fourteen of them turned out for the event. Nine of them were age seven or younger.

Big families were a way of life for Dolores long before her kids were born. She came from a family of 13 children.

"She was a hard-working woman dedicated to the family. I'm sure she had to do a lot more than most women, but she never complained about anything," Andersen said.

Her daughter Viola Leff of Walker retrieved a poem as it appeared in a Chicago paper decades ago. New Ulm polka band leader Harold Loeffelmacher wrote the words and former KNUJ radio disc jockey Don Miller composed the music to a polka tune dedicated to the quads called the Quads Polka.

Two months ago, Dolores accompanied her children and other family members to visit the Paul Bunyan amusement Center in Brainerd before it was closed down for good. The Seiferts began visiting Bunyan 50 years ago and made the trip just about every year when the kids were young.

Dolores enjoyed fishing, cooking, gardening, watching her children play baseball and softball and other family activities.

Her obituary is printed on page 5A in today's paper.