Marie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté

Marie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté was a Canadian midwife and widow, born in Lavaltrie, Quebec, in 1794 and dead in 1864. She married in 1811, had eleven children and moved to Montreal, where her husband died in the cholera epidemic of 1832. From 1840, working with Bishop Ignace Bourget, she cared for unwed mothers, at first in her own home and her children's homes, and in 1845 she opened the Hospice Sainte-Pélagie to give them shelter, childbirth care and recovery. In 1848 she took religious vows and founded the Sisters of Misericorde, taking the name Marie of the Nativity, and in 1849 she obtained formal midwifery qualifications. Pope Francis declared her venerable in 2013, and her cause for canonization is under study.