St Margueritte d’Youville

This is Margueritte d’Youville, a Canadian nun who in 1990 became the first native-born Canadian to be recognised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.

She was born in 1701 in Varennes, Quebec, and died in 1771. At the age of 20 she married a fur trader who was also engaged in the illegal liquor trade with tribespeople in the province’s interior. He died after they had been married for 8 years, leaving her with considerable debts and a family of six children to look after (although four of them died young).

Margueritte opened a store to help make ends meet and also established a mission in a poor area of Montreal to look after the city’s most destitute people, although she faced considerable opposition from other citizens.

Other women joined her work and they became the Order of Sisters of Charity of Montreal. Due to the colour of their habits they became known more generally as the Grey Nuns.

They became a nursing order in 1747 when Marguerite was asked to take over the running of the city’s hospital during hostilities between England and France over the colonial ownership of Canada. When the hospital was destroyed by fire in 1765 the Order rebuilt it.

Margueritte d’Youville died in 1771. She was beatified by Pope John XXIII in 1959 and canonized by Pope John-Paul II in 1990.

© John Welford