Jeanne Mance

Jeanne Mance ( born November 12, 1606 Langres (France), † June 18, 1673 in Montreal) was a French lay sister and nurse. She was involved in the founding of the city of Montreal and founded the Hôtel- Dieu de Montréal, the first hospital on Canadian soil.

Biography

Mance was born into a wealthy family of civil servants and grew up in Langres in northern Burgundy. After her mother's death, she took over the education of their younger siblings. During the Thirty Years' War, the Bishop of Langres financed the construction of a hospital and the establishment of a sisterhood. The deeply religious Mance joined this and devoted himself to nursing.

1640 Mance learned of the existence of the newly-founded Société Notre- Dame de Montréal, which wanted to build an idealistic utopian Christian settlement project in New France and convert the natives. She went to Paris in order to make contacts with people who would help her build a hospital. They secured the financial support of the Jesuits, the widow of the French Finance Minister and of Anne of Austria, the wife of King Louis XIII.

In May 1641 pricked the colonists, led by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve and officer of Jeanne Mance, from La Rochelle to sea. They reached after three months of Quebec, where they wintered. The following spring they sailed up the St. Lawrence River and landed on 17 May 1642 the Ile de Montréal. Maisonneuve founded the settlement of Ville- Marie, which later developed into the city of Montreal. Mance is true because of their organizational skills in building the settlement as the second founder of Montreal.

After Mance had initially set up in their house a hospital room, she founded on October 8, 1645 Hôtel- Dieu de Montréal, the first hospital on Canadian soil. It was housed in a building completed in 1645, offered the space for eight patients and nine years later was replaced by a new building. 1650 Mance held again in France. When she returned to Montreal the following year, she learned that the existence of the colony was highly vulnerable to repeated attacks by the Iroquois. She gave Maisonneuve the money that was actually intended for the expansion of the hospital, so that he could recruit new settlers in France.

Along with Marguerite Bourgeoys to Mance went a second time in 1659 to France. They recruited three nuns from La Flèche, which should support them in Montreal in nursing. From 1662-1664 to Mance held one last time in France. In 1673 she died in Montreal. Named after her include the Parc Jeanne -Mance at the foot of Mont Royal, a constituency in the Greater Montreal and the building of the Canadian Ministry of Health in Ottawa.