Sonoma County’s famed quadruplets turn 30

At a pizza and mud pie after-party this past weekend, Sean Levesque recalled being 5½ years old and suddenly aware that his family’s Windsor home was replete with diapers.

He and his two brothers - twin Justin and Damien, then 9 - had been in big-boy pants for years when their mother, Lynn, astonished herself and Sonoma County by giving birth to the only quadruplets that locals could remember. Sean grinned and confessed, “I kind of treated them like my pet hamsters.”

The Levesque quads - three girls and a boy - were renowned upon their birth on Feb. 26, 1985. Late last week, they and their mom and older brothers and about three dozen partners, friends and kin gathered to celebrate their four-times-30 years.

When they convened Saturday afternoon at the Beet Generation Farm near Sebastopol, operated by quad Ali Levesque and her spouse, Libby Batzel, some members of the entourage moved a tad slow. Friday night, they’d cruised San Francisco in a trolley-car bus.

“It was like a moving bar,” said Ali, who, in addition to farming, works as a paramedic and hopes to soon join the San Francisco Fire Department.

She’s one of the two quads who have stayed close to home. Brother Jacques is a Sebastopol police officer and the first of the quads to have children. He’s the father of a boy and a girl.

Sister Danielle Levesque, who is in beauty salon management, lives at present in Chicago. And Monique’s an interior designer for boutique hotels, and a New Yorker.

Though fairly well dispersed, “We all come home every two or three months,” Monique said. “My sisters and I talk a few times a day. Jacques, a few times a month. But he’s a boy.”

“Home” is mom’s place ?in Santa Rosa. Thirty years ?after she delivered four premature babies with a combined weight of less than 12 pounds, Lynn Levesque is long-divorced and profoundly proud and grateful.

“I’ve been blessed in so many ways,” she said at Saturday’s gathering at the farm. One ?blessing was the way Sonoma County people rallied to help and equip her and her ex-?husband, Greg, when the ?desire to become pregnant one more time in hopes of having a girl turned into the surprise of their lives.

Though myriad wonders flowed from the moment of the quads’ arrival by cesarean section at San Francisco Children’s Hospital, it wasn’t entirely a Hallmark story. The quads were 9 years old, the twins 14 and Damien 18 when Lynn told Greg she could no longer stay married to him.

“Who leaves her husband when she has seven children?” she exclaimed. She never remarried, and over the years she’s worked in a variety of fields, including the wine and hotel/spa trades.

“I sacrificed,” she said. “But look at what I got!”

She reviewed her life and blessings at length late in 2013 while walking 500 miles on Spain’s Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes. Ever more committed to healthful living, she prepares now to open a juice and smoothie booth at the twice-weekly farmers’ market in the parking lot of the Wells Fargo Center.

When she turned 60 last May, Lynn Levesque told her seven children she wanted to be with all of them in a big house, and ?to wake up with them. They rented a spacious place in Windsor.

“In the morning, they all came into the room in their spa robes,” she said. “It was a great 60th.”

Levesque said she marvels at how independent and successful her kids are, and how driven they are to serve others. Sean is a San Francisco chiropractor and father of two, his twin, ?Justin, is a Sacramento firefighter and the eldest, Damien, is ?an assistant to the chief of ?the Los Angeles Police Department.

Having been 9 when the quads were born, Damien Levesque said he soon felt more like a co-parent to them than a sibling. The year they entered Maria Carrillo High School, he became an L.A. police officer.

“I never saw any of their soccer games,” Damien said with palpable regret. But he noted that he now has three sons of his own, and he never misses any of their games.

Three boys, eh? It had to be asked if he and his wife, Julie, have considered trying to have one more child in hopes of getting a girl.

Others at the pizza-and-pie party outside of Sebastopol had to wonder why the Levesque quads’ eldest brother was shaking his head and laughing so.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD