The Great Stork Derby: How a Prankster’s Will Sparked Toronto’s Baby Boom

Four Toronto mothers split a prize worth what would be nine million dollars today... for having the most babies. This wasn't a reality show. It was a dead man's last laugh. In our last episode, we talked about a stolen wooden bucket that started an actual war in Italy, and it felt like peak human absurdity. Well, today we have a story that gives it a run for its money.

The man responsible was Charles Vance Millar, a Toronto lawyer who died on Halloween, 1926. Millar was a notorious practical joker. The kind of guy who’d leave cash on the sidewalk just to watch people's reactions. And his will was his masterpiece. He left brewery stocks to a group of Protestant ministers who were vehemently against alcohol. He left a vacation home to three lawyers who hated each other, forcing them to share it.

But the main event, the clause that would echo for a decade, concerned the bulk of his estate—about half a million dollars at the time. He left it all, in a trust, to the woman in Toronto who could give birth to the most children in the ten years following his death. The contest, which the papers immediately dubbed the “Great Stork Derby,” ran from 1926 to 1936.

Right through the teeth of the Great Depression. And this wasn't some abstract thought experiment. This was life-changing money for families with nothing. Eleven families officially entered the race. The media followed them obsessively. Who was ahead? Who had a miscarriage? It was a public spectacle built on private lives. But where have we seen this before? You could say it’s an early version of a viral challenge, or a MrBeast-style stunt.

But the analogy breaks down almost immediately. The stakes weren't views or clout; they were survival. And the contest wasn't just fun and games; it became a legal and moral battlefield. Millar’s distant relatives immediately sued, trying to get the will thrown out as being against "public policy." They argued it encouraged people to have kids recklessly. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The court upheld the will. The game was on. But the court also had to lay down some ground rules. What counted as a child? The judges ruled that only legitimate children—born within a marriage—counted. Stillborn children did not. Imagine the heartbreak. A mother losing a child, and then also losing her place in the race. This wasn't a game. This was brutal. And the public reaction… it was complicated.

The Derby held a mirror up to 1930s Canada. On one hand, you have people cheering for these mothers, hoping they win this incredible prize. On the other, you have a society grappling with poverty, and a rising eugenics movement that was actively stigmatizing poor families and immigrants for having "too many" kids. As one historian noted, there was a huge backlash against Catholic immigrants in particular.

The race became a proxy for all these anxieties about class, religion, and who deserved to build the future of the country. All because one mischievous lawyer wanted to cause a little trouble from beyond the grave. So after ten years of births, deaths, legal fights, and public debate… what happened? It ended in a four-way tie. Four mothers—Annie Smith, Kathleen Nagle, Lucy Timleck, and Isabel Maclean—had each managed to have nine children in ten years.

They split the prize, each walking away with about one hundred and ten thousand dollars. That's over two million dollars apiece in today's money. Two other women who had more children, but some were disqualified, ended up settling out of court for a smaller amount. In his will, Millar wrote that leaving the money was "proof of my folly in gathering and retaining more than I required." He saw his wealth as absurd, so he disposed of it in the most absurd way he could imagine.

But his prank did more than just make a few families rich. It forced a conversation. It revealed the cracks in society. For a decade, Charles Vance Millar, a man long dead, became the most talked-about social commentator in Canada.