Celebrating the birth of Emilie Tavernier Gamelin
Happy Birthday, Dear Emilie!
Birthdays are special! When the birthdays of our deceased loved ones occur, we remember them fondly and give thanks to God for their influence in our lives and the lives of many others. Perhaps you, like me, use the occasion to have a conversation with our loved one…
This year, on February 19 and 20 respectively, we will celebrate the 226th anniversary of the birth and baptism of our beloved Foundress, Emilie Tavernier Gamelin, and so I encourage you once again to remember her precious birth and life story. Consider having a conversation with her and entrust to her your blessings and challenges, as her beloved daughter engaged in this second year of our transformation into ONE canonical entity at the service of Mission and in solidarity with one another.
Let’s remember a few highlights of Blessed Émilie’s remarkable life and her land that Sister Yvette Demers shared with us on the occasion of Émilie’s birthday in 2021, well worth revisiting:
“On February 19, 1800, the fifteenth child of Antoine Tavernier and Marie-Josephte Maurice was born. The very next day, the father and his 21-year-old son, Antoine, the godfather-to-be, hitched up the horse and buggy and made their way to Notre-Dame Church. The child would be baptized by Father Joseph Michel Humbert, Sulpician, a native of Lyon, France. The baby girl received the name of Marie-Émilie-Eugène. Her godmother was her 15-year-old first cousin, Marie-Claire Perrault, daughter of Marie-Anne Tavernier and Joseph Perrault.
Would this child live? The anguish of this question could be read in Marie-Josephte’s eyes as she watched over the infant. Nine of her children had already died and the threat of epidemics was ever present”. However, “Providence is watching over…”. We also know that Émilie was born on a land called “Terre Providence”.
But where did the name come from? The Hospitallers of St. Joseph had their hospital on St. Paul Street, but as the years went by and the population grew, they wanted to find a parcel of land so that one day they could build a new Hôtel-Dieu. The brothers Gabriel and Benoist Basset, both unmarried, had inherited, upon the death of their father, a parcel of land that they gave to the Hospitallers of St. Joseph on November 29, 1730. The Hospitallers welcomed it as a gift from heaven and named the plot “Terre Providence.”
Subsequently, on November 7, 1791, Antoine Tavernier came to the convent of the Hospitallers, along with notaries A. Foucher and Louis Chaboillez, to sign a 30-year long-term lease for “Terre Providence”.1
In 2021 (and 2026), this place is easily identifiable: it is bounded to the north by Bernard Street, to the east by St-Urbain Street, to the south by Sherbrooke Street and to the west by du Parc Avenue. This is the site of the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal.
Providence really entered Émilie’s life…
Over the years she would be recognized as a “true Providence”, her houses would be named “House of Providence”, the house of foundation would be named “Asile de la Providence”, and when Émilie became the Foundress of a new community, its canonical name would be “Daughters of Charity Servants of the Poor”, but people would say: “In the House of Providence, they are ‘Sisters of Providence,’” and Bishop Bourget will add this to the title: “Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor, known as Sisters of Providence”.
Sisters of Providence, let us be proud of our origins and grateful to be the spiritual daughters of such a wonderful Mother! Let us implore her to continue to watch over us, to protect us in these difficult times and to heal our world by restoring confidence in better days.”
PROVIDENCE OF GOD,
I HOPE IN YOU!
Lovingly in Providence,
Karin Dufault, SP
Vice-Postulator
Source: Émilie Tavernier Gamelin, Éditions du Méridien, by Denise Robillard, 1988, pp. 31, 32, 35.
1 English version of the Biography, P. 31: Nov. 17 must be read Nov. 7 (1791).
Bureau of the Cause Emilie Tavernier Gamelin