05/23/2026
On this day in 1946, the Fultz sisters were born in Reidsville. The Fultz sisters were the first set of identical African-American quadruplets on record.
Their mother, Annie Mae Troxler Fultz, had fallen severely ill with spinal meningitis as a child, leaving her deaf and mute. Their father, James Fultz, was a sharecropper. By the time Annie Mae fell pregnant in 1945, she and James were already parents to six children, and they had no idea that this pregnancy would give them four more.
Two weeks prior to the birth, Annie Mae was admitted to the hospital for health concerns, and the x-rays taken at this time showed three babies. The night of the 23rd, Annie Mae went into labor down in the segregated basement wing of Care Memorial Hospital, which is today Annie Penn. Dr. Fred Klenner and African-American nurse Margaret Ware delivered them. The babies came surprisingly quickly, with the expected three children born within minutes of each other. The real shock came when the fourth baby, who had been hidden behind one of her sisters during the scans, was revealed. Upon hearing the news, James fainted.
The girls were premature and weighed only about 3 ½ lbs apiece. Despite this, they were not placed in an incubator. Instead, they were laid side by side, wrapped in cotton blankets, and kept near hot water bottles for warmth. They were fed formula through medicine droppers. Dr. Klenner told the Fultzes that if the girls could survive ten days, they would have a shot at a normal life.
Dr. Klenner, believing that vitamin C had incredible healing properties, injected each quad with fifty milligrams of ascorbic acid. This amount more than met their daily vitamin C requirements, especially considering the additional supplements included in their formula. The quads’ continued health improvements only encouraged Klenner’s experimental treatment. Without ever asking for consent from the Fultzes, he began to inject the quads with increasing amounts of vitamin C daily, documenting the process for a research paper.
While Annie Mae and James were busy trying to figure out the logistics of suddenly having four more children, they also had to deal with the press that flocked to the hospital for a glimpse at the miracle quads. The girls were instant celebrities. They made national news, appearing in the New York Times. Universal Studios sent in a cameraman to record footage of them, which was then shown in Rockingham County theaters for the public to watch. Security had to stand outside the hospital to handle all the media, as well as to deter potential kidnappers.
This fame brought an opportunity for Dr. Klenner. While Annie Mae was recovering with her daughters, struggling with the difficult decision of picking names, Klenner began courting sponsorship deals from milk companies like Pet and Carnation. Pet was selected after the company offered a deal to pay all accumulated bills for the girls during the first ten years of their lives, pay for the employment of African American nurse Elma Saylor to care for them, and provide property and a home for the Fultzes.
After Klenner finished negotiations with Pet, he approached the Fultzes and convinced them of the deal. Klenner, not Annie Mae and James, was awarded this deal. Susie Sharp, Klenner’s sister-in-law, became the trustee of this deal. One of the perks of this deal was that the land Pet gave the Fultzes had been purchased from the Sharps for $ 6,000. It also meant that Klenner was free to continue administering his experimental vitamin C treatments to the sisters.
The Fultzes, facing a future where they had to provide for ten children on a poor sharecropper’s earnings, believed the deal was too good to pass up. They accepted, and Klenner snagged one more perk: the girls' names. Each girl was given the first name Mary, then a second name from Klenner’s own family. They were named Mary Louise, Mary Ann, Mary Alice, and Mary Catherine.
Pet used the Fultz sisters to attract African American consumers, reporting that the quads were so healthy because they were fed only Pet milk. They were regularly featured in advertisements and went on promotional tours for the company. They were introduced to President Truman at four and to Kennedy at sixteen. In 1964, when the sisters turned eighteen, the deal with Pet ended.
Later in life, all four sisters developed breast cancer. Catherine, before her death, expressed that they all believed the cancer was a result of Klenner’s vitamin shots during their childhood.
