Élodie Mailloux (9 February 1865 – 27 December 1937) was the founding director of the first nursing school in Canada to offer instruction to lay people in the French language. The École des Hospitalières et Gardes-Malades de l'Hôpital Notre-Dame, was founded in 1897.

Life and work

Baptized Marie-Mélodie, she was the daughter of Magloire and Rosalie Langlois. During the

Quebec diaspora The Quebec diaspora consists of Quebec immigrants and their descendants dispersed over the North American continent and historically concentrated in the New England region of the United States, Ontario, and the Canadian Prairies. The mass emigrat ...

her parents emigrated to

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, in 1867. On completion of her studies there at the Couvent Jésus-Marie, she became a novice in the

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of the Hôpital Général of

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, after which she took her vows in 1887. After working as a

bursar A bursar (derived from ''wikt:bursa, bursa'', Latin for 'Coin purse, purse') is a professional Administrator of the government, administrator in a school or university often with a predominantly financial role. In the United States, bursars usual ...

for the

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, in 1894 she became a nurse at a hospital run by the congregation in

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, where in 1896 she set up the Grey Nuns' first nursing school. Subsequently, she organized the first French-language nursing school in Canada in 1897, at the École des Hospitalières et Gardes-Malades de l'Hôpital Notre-Dame. She was director of the nursing school (1898–1902), head nurse (1897–1899), superior at Notre-Dame Hospital (1899–1902), assistant general of the Grey Nuns (1902–1907), superior of the of Ville-Marie (1907–1915), bursar general (1915–1925), and superior in

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(1925–1926). In 2009, the Mailloux Pavilion at Notre-Dame Hospital was commemorated as a site of Canadian historical significance.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mailloux, Elodie 1865 births 1937 deaths People from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu 19th-century Canadian nuns Canadian nurses Canadian women nurses 20th-century Canadian nuns