Date Published:
July 2008

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Sisters of the Joan of Arc Institute

Sisters of the Joan of Arc Institute. The Congregation of the Sisters of the Joan of Arc Institute, who have their mother house and novitiate in Ottawa, is both a civil corporation, chartered by the Ontario government, and a religious Congregation, founded on October 7, 1919, with the approbation of the Holy See, through His Grace Archbishop Gauthier and Rev. Canon Plantin. It is under the direction of the Rev. Mother St. Thomas Aquinas, the foundress and first superior-general. The Congregation comprises 94 mem­bers. This Congregation has charge of the protection and education of youth. Its chief aim is the protection of young girls away from home. To them and to ladies travelling it offers room and board in a homelike atmosphere, where everything contributes to their physical and moral well-being and to their health and happiness. Through the employ­ment bureau the Sisters help to find work for those who are unemployed. The second aim of the Congregation is education. A course of studies com­prising elementary, intermediate, and high school classes is given to day pupils and boarders. The Congregation has three houses in the archdiocese of Boston, where the sisters took charge of St. Anthony's Parochial School in Shirley, Mass., in 1921, and of St. Aloysius of Gonzaga's in Newburyport, Mass., in 1923. St. Theresa's for young ladies in Newburyport, Mass., was opened in 1927. To favour health through recreation, the Congregation offers ladies two summer houses, Villa Lorraine on lake Wakefield, Quebec, in the Lauren­tian hills, and Villa Bellerive at Wych­wood on the shore of the Ottawa river, only seven miles from the capital. In July, 1934, at Westboro, Ontario, on the outskirts of Ottawa, the Congre­gation built and opened the " Joan of Arc House", a beautiful residence for convalescent ladies and children, and a school for convalescent and retarded children.

Source: W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Volume VI, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 398p., pp. 22-23.