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Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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LECAVALIER, EMÉLIE (1841-1922)

LECAVALIER, EMÉLIE, Sister Ste-Antonine of the Congregation of Notre Dame; music teacher, and superior at Newcastle, 1885-86 and 1897-1901; b. Saint-Martin, Ile Jésus, Canada East, 25 Dec 1841, d/o Benjamin Lecavalier and Christine Hotte; entered religious life, 1863; d. Montreal, 1 May 1922.

As one of a family of twenty-three children, Emélie Lecavalier was lucky to be able to attend the convent school at Sainte-Thérèse, Que., as preparation for her admission, at age eighteen, to the novitiate of the Congregation of Notre Dame. After her profession in 1865 she taught in Quebec schools and had been at Chateauguay for six years before being assigned to Newcastle in 1874.

Lecavalier was a teacher of piano who made competent community musicians of many of her pupils. She also served as church organist and choir director and could always be counted upon to supply music on religious occasions. For twenty-three years she brought an "ardeur infatigable" to her work and did much to make St Mary's Academy the successful and much-loved school which it was. In 1885-86 she relieved Mary Catherine Purcell (Sister St Beatrice) for a year as superior, and when Purcell was recalled to the mother house in 1897 she agreed to take her place, while also continuing to teach music. She filled this dual role until 1901, when she was succeeded as superior by Catherine Elizabeth Green (Sister St Mary Gertrude).

Lecavalier was subsequently superior for shorter periods at three different convents in Quebec and Nova Scotia and had various other assignments. She retired to the mother house in 1916 and died there in 1922, at age eighty.

Sources

[b] census [d] CND archives / Advocate 7 Jul 1897


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