Great Stork Derby
The Great Stork Derby was a contest in Toronto, Canada, from 1926 to 1936. Women competed to have the most babies in order to win a bequest from Charles Vance Millar, a lawyer and practical joker who left the rest of his estate to the Toronto woman who could bear the most children in the ten years after his death.
Millar’s will included several odd gifts beyond the Stork Derby, such as giving a Jamaica vacation home to a quarrelsome trio who had to live together, brewery stocks to Protestant ministers who ran a project and collected its dividends, and jockey club stocks to anti-horse-racing advocates.
The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the contest’s validity but ruled that it did not cover children born out of wedlock or stillborn children.
Eleven families entered the “baby race.” Seven were disqualified, but four mothers ultimately won: Annie Katherine Smith, Kathleen Ellen Nagle, Lucy Alice Timleck, and Isabel Mary Maclean. Each woman received $110,000 for nine children (about $2.24 million in 2023 dollars). Three of the four winners had to repay relief money that the City of Toronto had provided.
Two disqualified contestants, Lillian Kenny and Pauline Mae Clarke, settled out of court for $12,500 each to abandon appeals.
The story has appeared in popular culture. A 2002 TV movie, The Stork Derby, told the stories of Kenny, Clarke, and Grace Bagnato and starred Megan Follows; it was based on Elizabeth Wilton’s book Bearing The Burden: The Great Toronto Stork Derby 1926–1938. In 2019, the radio program This American Life covered the tale in detail. In 2016, Muddy York Brewing Company produced a Stork Derby Stout in tribute. A 2023 novel, Prize Women by Caroline Lea, is a fictionalized account that includes several real-life figures.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:45 (CET).