Rose Prince (or Rose of the Carrier) was a

Dakelh The Dakelh (pronounced ) or Carrier are the indigenous people of a large portion of the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. The "Carrier" name was derived from an English translation of ''Aghele'', the name from the neighbouring Sekani ...

woman who has become the subject of a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...

Biography

Rose Prince was born in

Fort St. James Fort St. James is a district municipality and former fur trading post in northern central British Columbia, Canada. It is located on the south-eastern shore of Stuart Lake in the Omineca Country, at the northern terminus of Highway 27, which con ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, in 1915, the third of the nine children of Jean-Marie and Agathe Prince.Annual Lejac Pilgrimage
Diocese of Prince George. Jean-Marie was descended from the great chief

Kwah {{distinguish, Kwah language Kwah is the usual English form of the name of the famous Carrier leader Kw'eh. He was born around 1755 and died in 1840. Chief Kw'eh was the chief of his keyoh called Nak'azdli in the late eighteenth and early nineteent ...

. He met his wife Agathe at the residential school that was part of Saint Joseph's Mission in

Williams Lake, British Columbia Williams Lake is a city in the Central Interior of British Columbia, in the central part of a region known as the Cariboo. Williams Lake is the second largest city, by population of metropolitan area, in the Cariboo after neighbouring Quesnel. ...

.They were married at the school. When the

Lejac Residential School Lejac Residential School was a Canadian residential school in British Columbia that operated from 1922 to 1976 by the Roman Catholic Church under contract with the Government of Canada. Construction of the school was completed on 17 January 1922, ...

was built in 1922 Rose was sent there with some of her siblings and other children from her school, as part of the

Canadian residential school system In Canada, the Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school ...

. When Prince was 16, still attending school at Lejac, her mother and two youngest sisters died from an influenza outbreak. Devastated, she opted not to return home for the summers, but to stay on at the school instead. After graduation, she stayed on at the school, tutoring children who needed help with their schoolwork, completing chores such as mending and sewing, painting and embroidering. She also worked as a secretary to the director. At some point, Prince contracted tuberculosis, and by the age of 33 she was confined to bed. On August 19, 1949, two days before she turned 34 she was admitted to the hospital and died the same day.

Pilgrimage

In 1951, two years after her death, her body was reportedly found incorrupt. Decades later, Father Joules Goulet called for a pilgrimage to Lejac. Although only 20 people gathered in its first year in 1990, awareness has grown dramatically through passing years. In 1995, 1200 people made the trip to Lejac, coming from the region and even other provinces. Father Goulet's prayers and anointments at the site have even been claimed to heal the chronically injured.

References

2. Flouriot, Marie (2016) Reflections on an extraordinarily ordinary life. Prince George diocese website.

External links

Uncorrupted: The Story of Rose Prince
- A documentary film about Rose Prince. {{DEFAULTSORT:Prince, Rose 1915 births 1949 deaths 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis 20th-century First Nations people Catholic pilgrimage sites Dakelh people History of British Columbia People from the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako Tuberculosis deaths in British Columbia