Mother Bruyère’s wri t ings, LETTERS and CHRONICLES, reveal her compass
ion for her cher ished chi ldren, the orphans and the abandoned. Her
spiri ted style unvei l ei ther her personal feel ings, important events, evident provident ial intervent ions. We discover in her handwri t ten LETTERS and CHRONICLES the historical evolut ion of a magni f icent achievement .
THE CARE OF ORPHANS
A Mother Élisabeth Bruyère is sent to Bytown
with the mission to bring relief to the numerous
miseries afflicting this harsh environment. Her
compassionate heart is touched at the sight of all
the categories of poor, in particular the group of
orphans to which she devotes all her kindheartedness.
In her energetic style, on May 26, 1845, she describes a recent heartbreaking experience to the Sisters of Montreal.
Today, a rich Protestant landowner found an abandoned
two-year-old child in the middle of his fields
amidst the pigs and the cows. This gentleman asked
Mr. Bareille to ask us to take in this poor baby
whose father is Protestant. The mother is Catholic;
she left her husband to go live with a wicked man
from the States. Mr. Bareille told Mr. Pinhey that
we did not have the means to take that child in, but
Father Telmon had already sent someone to tell him
to send it to us and that he had no time to consult
us but he knew right well that we would share our
bread with this orphan. And so, we are awaiting
her tomorrow, May 27. I believe we can take charge of this baby girl, for Divine Providence never keeps
us waiting : as we multiply our good works, God
multiplies the alms – a
fact that is remarkable, particularly when we receive a poor.
Divine Providence,
you are
the mother
of the orphan. |
The next day, she receives
the child, a lovely
little girl who brings a
ray of light in the convent. The compassion
which emanates from the following message to
Sister Thibodeau several days later, reveals the true sentiments of the person who welcomes the orphan.
As I am writing to you, little Mary is bringing me
her clothes, apron and shoes in her small arms, for
me to dress her up; she joins her little hands and prays to God like an angel. She is always charming, as you well know.
For our beloved Mother, there is so such thing as
racial barriers.. All children are God’s children.
In a letter dated June 22, 1945, she relates the final moments of a young Irish woman suffering from tuberculosis.
Top of the page
Our young Irish girl died last Friday at three
o’clock, during the first Vespers of St. Louis
Gonzaga. This young girl was orphaned of both
parents; she had only one brother in this country.
She died like an angel, praying to Saint Louis
Gonzaga whose image she had at the head of her
bed. She edified us much during her illness; She
loved us all very much, calling each one of us her
mother, and in the last days of her life, she always
wanted one of us at her bedside. Father Telmon
had us notice that since we were consecrated to the
Cross, God had wanted that our first poor be an
orphan and that she die on a Friday, at the first Vespers of the Patron Saint of young people, Saint Louis Gonzaga.
Divine Providence,
you console
us in
our exile. |
Amidst the cramped quarters of the original
convent, Mother Bruyère is happy to tell the
Grey Sisters of Red
River on June 28, 1845,
that they shelter three
orphan girls, the
youngest being two
years old.
In a letter dated
October 9, 1946, to
Mother McMullen, one gets a glimpse of her concern for the spiritual well-being of her dear orphans.
A few days before our retreat, I had admitted a
young 12 year-old emigrant, orphan of both
parents, who was very sick. She had never received
Holy Communion; she had been to confession at the Hotel Dieu Hospital of Montreal, where she had spent a month. She went to confession here twice.
We were preparing her for her First Communion,
but in the night of the
first day of our retreat,
she expired in the arms
of Sister Rodriguez who
could not reach the
priest fast enough; she
died almost suddenly.
Yesterday, we heard
from a reliable source
that the two orphans (a boy and a girl) that we
admitted last autumn, had hot been baptized; one is six years old, the other, seven.
The day finally arrives when the large convent
on Water (today Bruyère) Street will house more
children. Once again, Mother Bruyère’s
thoughts go to the young immigrants who
became orphans following the dreadful typhus
epidemic. On October 9, 1849, while the new Mother house is under construction, she writes in her CHRONICLES :
We are reserving three rooms for Father Ryan’s
Irish orphans. Father is furnishing these rooms out
of his own personal income. We provide the space only. We also reserved for him an area in the basement which he had partitioned.
She is overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her
dear orphans preceding her in the new convent,
as she expresses it in the CHRONICLES of
January 8, 1850 :
We are all happy to see that the orphans are the
first to occupy a house destined originally for the
boarders only. The poor are our children.
Moreover, we are their servants; we are touched to
welcome first in this big and comfortable mansion
those whom we are called to served. At the same
date last year, not even a stone or a plank was to be
found on the site of this building; far from our thoughts then to have a first and even a second floor erected; in fact, we had abandoned the idea entirely.
Elsewhere, human tragedies go on. On January
10, 1850, an unexpected event happened at the
church and which, once again, challenged
Mother Bruyère’s compassion.
Top of the page
Sisters Laflamme and Curran were practicing at
the organ under Father Allard’s direction. Sister
Rivet had brought the boarders over to listen to the
music. Father Boyle finds a newly-born baby girl
beside the stove in the sacristy. The boarders
recalled having seen a lady leaving the child there
some time before it was discovered. The lady
seemed to handle the baby in her arms as if to keep
it from crying.
Divine Providence,
you are
the source
of all good. |
Not knowing what to do in
the circumstances, the
good Father was heading
for the bishop’s residence
when Father Dandurand
told him to bring the child
to the Sisters of Charity
whom he knew were in the
church at the time, which he did immediately.
Sister Rivet took the child in her arms (...) Mr.
Poitras and Miss Paradis stood as godparents at
her baptism. Miss Poitras, the godfather’s sister,
promises that a certain sum of money will be
honoured by the godparents as gifts on this
occasion. Sister Rivet brought the child to the
convent. We bathed her and later that night
around eight thirty, Sisters Rivet and Phelan bring
the child to a foster home. Mrs. Aumond pledges to
send clothing for the baby who was baptized under
the name Marie Joseph by Father Dandurand.
And life goes on... As the children grow up, they keep an undeniable bond with the Sisters who received and loved them. Witness the example
of little Mary Jordan,
who was once found in
a field among the animals.
The following is
found in the CHRONICLES
of January 19,
1859.
Divine Providence,
tu es
la force
des faibles. |
This Wednesday (19),
our good Father arrived
accompanied by our first
orphan, Mary Philomena Jordan, who had been
sent to Providence Orphanage in Montréal some
years ago. The dear child had requested as a
Christmas gift to return to Bytown, which was done
through the good services
of Father Aubert. The
child is now 15. She was
well educated by the
Sisters of Providence
who have been a mother
to her. The poor child is
prone to suffer from
tuberculosis. Father
Telmon had received her and sent her to us through
an Irish Lady. She was about a year old then; she
was a very nice child and we loved her very much.
The premises of the new building already could
no longer suffice to accommodate the needs of
an era where parents died at an early age and
left large families. On July 15, 1868, Mother
Bruyère notes in her CHRONICLES that a
dream shared also by her Sisters for a long time,
had finally become a reality. A building destined
to house the orphans and the elderly opens its
doors on Sussex at Cathcart.
On this Wednesday, the orphans of Saint Joseph
sleep in their new home for the first time; two floors
only are ready, the ground floor and the one above
it. We access to the second by an old staircase fixedto the exterior wall; this is the only floor with
windows installed. The dear little girls are
comfortably set up for sleeping there. The boys
remain in the wooden house on Church street along
with the Sisters and a few women. The excessive
heat of this summer would have caused a good
number of orphans to be overcome by the heat if
we hadn’t had the home to accommodate a good
number nightly. Our dear Sister Cécile is the first
to sleep at the orphanage with the orphans; a
watchman sleeps in another part of the building
with a big dog.
Four years later, the Irish orphans would be
housed in an orphanage of their own. In the
beginning, the work of orphans resembled the
size of a tiny seed. In the last years of Mother
Bruyère’s life, Saint Patrick Orphanage could
receive up to 150 children while Saint Joseph
Orphanage could accommodate120.
Sisters were taken in on April Fool’s Day. Although it was silence, no one spoke
but all laughed heartily.” 
We have finally received the very beautiful
statue of Saint Joseph that we were waiting for
with much impatience.
How can we ever
thank you for the joy
experienced once it
arrived? We were very
happy from the moment
Father Telmon,
in thanksgiving for his
nearly iraculous cure,
promised to get an
image of our beloved
protector, but how
much greater was our joy when learning that
you yourself assumed the cost of this pious“monument”. Today, I can bring joy to your
heart by relating all the favours received
by your Congregation and ours through
Saint Joseph. We were both immersed in
a bitter affliction; the typhus was rampant
in the city; Father Molloy and five of our
Sisters had been infected by the disease
while assisting the plague-ridden Irish
emigrants arriving here. Our Father proposed carrying the statue to the Church; he set up an
altar in honour of Saint Joseph and announced
a solemn Novena for the recovery of the sick
and the protection of the city.
THE GREAT TYPHUS EPIDEMIC
In the last issue of ECHOES, we began the story about the typhus epidemic in Bytown,
this contagious disease that the Irish immigrants contracted on their ship crossing to
Canada. The Sisters care for an ever growing
number of patients. They care for them day and
night. They even have to take the dead to the
/ 3
5
/ 4
1
/ 6