Élisabeth Bruyère 1818-1876

Photo by Alan L Brown - June 30, 2005

Plaque Location

The City of Ottawa
On the north side of Bruyere Street between Sussex Drive and Parent Avenue

Plaque Text

In the 1840s, Bytown (Ottawa) was growing timber-trade village with a substantial French-Canadian population but no Catholic schools and few social services. In February of 1845 the Sisters of Charity of Montreal (Grey Nuns) sent four nuns here. Led by Élisabeth Bruyère, a devout, well-educated young woman, the sisters quickly established a bilingual school for girls, a hospital, and an orphanage. They helped the poor, the elderly and the sick, including hundreds of of immigrants stricken by the typhus epidemics of 1847-48. By the time of Élisabeth Bruyère's death the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa had founded key local institutions and had extended their services to sixteen other communities in Canada and the U.S.