The Great Stork Derby was a contest during the period from 1926 to 1936, where women in Toronto, Canada, competed to produce the most babies in order to qualify for an unusual bequest in a will.
The race was the product of a scheme by Toronto lawyer, financier and practical joker Charles Vance Millar, who bequeathed the residue of his significant estate to the woman in Toronto who could produce the most children in a ten year period after his death. The winning mothers were Annie Katherine Smith, Kathleen Ellen Nagle, Lucy Alice Timleck and Isabel Mary Maclean. Each of them received $125,000 for their nine children. Two others each received $12,500 out of court: Lillian Kenny (ten children, but two stillborn) and Pauline Mae Clarke (ten children - five set of twins, but several illegitimate). Some of the estate was also paid to the Toronto Welfare Department.
A Canadian-made television movie was released in 2002 entitled "The Stork Derby," depicting the stories of Lillian Kenny, Pauline Mae Clarke and Grace Bagnato. Bagnato was disqualified by the court for being married to an illegal Italian immigrant, in addition to not being able to show birth registration documents for several of her children (23 children total – 12 living, 9 born in the duration of the ten years that the contest lasted). The movie is based on Elizabeth Wilton's book "Bearing The Burden: The Great Toronto Stork Derby 1926 - 1938."
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