Émilie Gamelin

Bl. Émilie Tavernier Gamelin, S.P.
Statue of the Blessed Émilie Gamelin by Raoul Hunter (1999) (at the Berri-UQAM Metro station, Montreal)
Widow, religious and foundress
Born	(1800-02-19)February 19, 1800 Montreal, Lower Canada, Kingdom of Great Britain
Died	September 23, 1851(1851-09-23) (aged 51) Montreal, Province of Canada, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Beatified	7 October 2001, Rome by Pope John Paul II
Feast	24 September (Canada)

Émilie Tavernier Gamelin, S.P., (19 February 1800 – 23 September 1851) was a French Canadian social worker and Roman Catholic Religious Sister. She is best known as the founder of the Sisters of Providence of Montreal. In 2001 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II.

She was born Marie-Émilie-Eugène Tavernier (also known as Amélie) on 19 February 1800 in Montreal, the youngest of the 15 children of Antoine Tavernier and Marie-Josephe Maurice. Nine of her siblings died before reaching adulthood. Gamelin's mother died in 1804 when Gamelin was aged 4 and her father died in 1814 when Gamelin was aged 14. Consequently, Gamelin was raised by her aunt Marie-Anne Tavernier and her husband Joseph Perrault, to whose care Gamelin's mother had entrusted Émilie prior to her death. Gamelin shared the Perrault household with her aunt and uncle and their four children.

From 1814 to 1815, Gamelin boarded at the school run by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, before returning to the Perrault household. In 1818 Gamelin moved to the house of her brother François, whose wife had recently died, to care for him. When she returned to the Perrault household in 1819, her aunt, now old and infirm, put Émilie under the care of her daughter Agathe (born 1787), who became a third mother to her.

At the age of 19, while caring for her aunt, Gamelin spent time as a debutante in Montreal fashionable society and was frequently seen at the social events of the city. Between 1820 and 1822 Gamelin spent two stretches residing with one of her cousins, Julie Perrault, in Quebec city, ending in 1822 when Gamelin's aunt, Marie-Anne, died, resulting in Gamelin and her cousin Agathe Perrault moving together into a house in Montreal West. In a letter to Agathe dated June 18, 1822, Gamelin wrote that she felt "a strong vocation [...] for the convent. [...] I renounce for ever the young dandies and also the [vanities of this] world; I shall become a religious some time in the autumn."