Marguerite d'Youville

Life events

1. Born — 1701

   Born Marie-Marguerite Dufrost de Lajemmerais on October 15, 1701, at Varennes, Quebec, the oldest daughter of Christophe du Frost, Sieur de la Gesmerays, and Marie-Renée Gaultier de Varennes. Her father died when she was a young girl, leaving the family in poverty.

2. Educated — 1712

   At age 11, despite her family's poverty, Marguerite attended the Ursuline convent in Quebec City for two years, after which she returned home to teach her younger brothers and sisters.

3. Other — 1722

   On August 12, 1722, Marguerite married François d'Youville at Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal. Of the couple's six children, four died in infancy; François himself died in 1730, leaving Marguerite a widow at age 29.

4. Other — 1737

   In 1737, Marguerite and three other women founded a religious association in Montreal to provide a home for the poor. The group was mockingly called "les grises" — meaning both "the grey women" and "the drunken women" — a reference to her late husband's trade in illegal liquor.

5. Other — 1747

   In 1747, the association — by then a formal religious congregation — was granted a charter to operate the General Hospital of Montreal, which was then in ruins and deeply in debt. D'Youville and her community restored its financial footing; when fire destroyed the hospital in 1765, they rebuilt it.

6. Died — 1771

   Marguerite d'Youville died on December 23, 1771, at the General Hospital of Montreal, the institution she had rebuilt from insolvency and ruin.

7. Other — 1959

   In 1959, Pope John XXIII beatified Marguerite d'Youville, describing her as "Mother of universal charity." She had been declared Venerable by Pope Pius XI in 1931, following the formal opening of her beatification process in 1890.

8. Other — 1990

   Pope John Paul II canonized Marguerite d'Youville in 1990, making her the first native-born Canadian to be declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

Relationships

Documented claims

• The congregation founded by d'Youville was mockingly nicknamed "les grises" (the grey women / the drunken women) by critics who associated the name with her husband's illegal liquor trade; the community adopted grey habits and the name became their identity. (likely)
• The canonization review examined a medically inexplicable cure of acute myeloid leukemia after relapse, attributed to prayers to d'Youville. The patient became the only known long-term survivor of this form of the disease in the world, surviving more than 40 years beyond a condition that typically kills within 18 months. (likely)
• Historical records document that d'Youville and the Grey Nuns used enslaved labourers at their hospital and purchased and sold both Indigenous slaves and British war prisoners, making d'Youville one of Montreal's more prominent slaveholders of the era. (likely)
• In 2010, d'Youville's remains were removed from the Grey Nuns Motherhouse and relocated to Varennes, her birthplace, where a shrine had stood since 1961. (likely)