“What a woman! If she were a man, she would have been a minister a long time ago! “It is in these words that, in 1909, Athanase David, future Secretary of the Province of Quebec, described Mother Sainte-Anne-Marie, an outstanding religious. Born in 1861 in Saint-Paul-d’Abbotsford, Marie-Aveline Bengle became a Sister Sainte-Anne-Marie in 1880, within the Congregation of Notre-Dame. Initially a teacher, this strong, disciplined and strategic woman rose to power with intelligence and perspicacity. Upon her death in March 1937, she was entitled to a funeral as grand as that of Brother André, who had died two months earlier. These two builders had very different fates. One became a saint of the Catholic Church, the other was forgotten. Yet, Mother Sainte-Anne-Marie fought all her life to advance higher education among young Quebec women. She will be associated with the feminists of her time, despite popular reprobation. With her many accomplishments, including the founding of the first classical women’s college in Quebec, her action paved the way for the Quiet Revolution and, without her, the destiny of Quebec women would not have been the same.
