How the Sisters of Providence Fought against the Typhus.

During the spring of 1847, thousands of women and men from Ireland set sail to Montreal, fleeing from the famine that plagued their homeland.  Many of them contracted typhus during their journey. To stop the contagion, the new immigrants were confined to structures known as “fever sheds”.  Ignace Bourget, the Bishop of Montreal, then asked the Sisters of Providence to care for these unfortunate people.

At this time,  the Congregation had only 52 Sisters. Nothing could have prepared the Sisters who were assigned to care for the new immigrants to face the extremely poor conditions in which they  were housed in the sheds: those who were alive were sharing bunk beds with those who had died, every corner in the sheds was infested by pests and especially by a great number of lice.  The saddest sight of all was to encounter the thousands of children that had become orphans overnight.

During the summer of 1847, Mother Gamelin, Founder and Leader of the Providence  Congregation in Montreal, decided to rent a house on Saint Catherine Street to serve as a hospice for the lodging of orphans.  The following year she relocated this hospice to a larger house which she rented from the Good Shepherd Sisters. In total, 650 Irish youth —ages ranging from newly born babies to seventeen years old— were received at the hospice.  Over time, some of these orphans found new homes with families in Quebec.

In January 1852, the St-Jérôme-Émilien Hospice was converted into a hospital and renamed after Saint Patrick, the patron of Ireland. The  hospital received patients from the surrounding neighborhoods, many of whom were Irish.  As with most of the buildings from the Faubourgs St-Jacques and St- Laurent neighborhoods, the hospital was destroyed during the fire of July 8, 1852.

At the peak of the typhus epidemic, 32 Providence Sisters became ill.  On July 19,  1847, Bishop Bourget made the following promise to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Sorrows,  on behalf of all the Sisters:  “Hereby we pledge to light seven candles every Friday of each year in honor of this Holy Image that reminds us of your sufferings for us and for those who will come after us.  These seven candles will symbolize the seven virtues that we commit to practice in your honor;  namely, simplicity, humility, obedience, confidence in the Divine Providence, selflessness, generosity, and charity.” (From : Texte du vœu, Délibérations du conseil et Admission des sujets, volume 1). Our Heavenly Mother listened to this prayer and, except for three sisters, the sick sisters regained their health.

Here is a most interesting fact: to this day, the promise described above is still being observed by the members of our community, the Sisters of Providence.

Marie-Claude Béland, archivist