- Élisabeth Bruyère
Élisabeth Bruyère or Bruguier (
March 19 1818 –April 5 1876 ) was the founder of the Sisters of Charity ofBytown and opened the first hospital there and the firstbilingual school inOntario .She was born Élisabeth Bruguier in L’Assomption in
Lower Canada in 1818. Daughter of Charles Bruguier and Sophie Mercier.In 1839, she joined the Sisters of Charity of the
Hôpital Général of Montreal , also known as the Grey Nuns. In 1845, she was asked to set up a community of the Sisters of Charity at Bytown to establish Roman Catholic schools, hospitals and orphanages there. In 1854, the community in Bytown became independent of Montreal.Although the Sisters of Charity cared for people of every religious denomination during the typhus outbreak in 1847, a Protestant General Hospital, later the
Ottawa Civic Hospital , was opened in 1850. The Sisters of Charity were also responsible from 1870 to 2001 of the school which became today theCollège Saint-Joseph de Hull inGatineau , the city's girl school and one of two private secondary institutions.The community opened other houses in Ontario,
Quebec andNew York state. The hospital opened in Bytown later became theOttawa General Hospital . The Sisters of Charity also established facilities for the aged, opening the St. Charles Old Age Hospice, later the Residence Saint-Louis.She died in
Ottawa in 1876.The
Élisabeth Bruyère Health Centre , located on the former site of the Ottawa General hospital, is named after her. For over 150 years, the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa were a cornerstone of health care in Ottawa.External links
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=4864 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
* [http://www.soeursdelachariteottawa.org/history.html Sisters of Charity of Ottawa]
* [http://www.scohs.on.ca/ SCO Health Service]
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