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\nPhoto on the left: \u00a9 Julie Allard<\/span><\/p>\n
On a cold February afternoon, we travelled to Victoriaville to meet Jeanne-Mance Houle. At the age of 86, this radiant, generous and visionary woman welcomed us into her home with inspiring kindness. Through her vocation and her optimistic view of the passage of time, she embodies a longevity imbued with meaning and transmission.<\/p>\n
Her story, made up of fragments of life, is a tribute to the passage of time, to the great joys and profound trials of life, to eternal love and the blood ties that never die.<\/p>\n
MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE<\/h3>\n
\u201cI loved school when I was young. I told my mother that I wanted to go to school until I was 30, but as I was the eldest of seven children, my parents couldn\u2019t afford to pay for long studies. So I did a business course. I got a job in an office. I was there for five years, I had some interesting colleagues, and it was there that I met the man who would become my husband, Yvon.<\/p>\n
Then I worked with him, he had restaurants, and I helped and supported him in that.<\/p>\n
One day, we were in Florida and I had just turned 40. Yvon had gone for a walk. In the meantime, I reflected and said to myself: \u2018You\u2019re 40. It\u2019s time to make your unfulfilled dreams come true.\u2019 When he came back from his walk, I said to him, \u2018My dream was to go to university, and I didn\u2019t.\u2019 He was immediately supportive, and I was able to pay for my courses with our money. I started at the Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Trois-Rivi\u00e8res, doing an evening course while working. But at the rate of one course per term, it takes 12 years to complete a bachelor\u2019s degree! Towards the end, I went part-time and ended up graduating at the age of 53. I graduated a year before Eric, my youngest son, did.\u201d<\/p>\n
A VOCATION: PROVIDING CARE AT THE END OF LIFE<\/h3>\n
\u201cI earned my bachelor\u2019s degree by accumulating three certificates: theology, gerontology and psychology. So I was working and studying part-time while also being the mother of three children. Luckily, they were all grown up, and I just had Eric left at home.<\/p>\n
After graduating, I went to Qu\u00e9bec to perfect my skills in caring for people at the end of their lives, and I found a job in a residential and long-term care centre. I really loved that job, and I received a lot of love in return. Even when I was on call and they called me in the middle of the night, I didn\u2019t mind getting up and going. I was so motivated. I came away energized, as if the person I\u2019d helped had given me energy. I felt serene because I\u2019d freed them. I\u2019ve never found it upsetting to be in close contact with death.<\/p>\n
I did this for about fifteen years, until I was 70. When I\u2019d finished, the activity coordinator said to me, \u2018Come back and visit us, Jeanne-Mance!\u2019 It\u2019s funny, but I never went back. The mission was accomplished, and I said to myself, \u2018Now think of yourself.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
TAKING CARE OF OTHERS, FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION<\/h3>\n
\u201cLaurence and Rosalie, my granddaughters, often came to spend Saturdays with us when they were young, because their parents were working. They stayed with their grandfather because I worked at the residential and long-term care centre.<\/p>\n
One morning, when Laurence was four or five, she looked at me as I was leaving and said: \u2018Grandma! What\u2019s your job?\u2019, meaning \u2018you always go away on Saturdays.\u2019 I explained to her that Grandma met with people who were ill, people who were in pain, and that she consoled them, listened to them. She looked me in the eye and said: \u2018That\u2019s what I want to do when I grow up!\u2019 And today she\u2019s a doctor. Even as an adult, she remembered that moment, and that\u2019s what pushed her in that direction.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m so proud of my children, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren. They are my greatest treasure, my greatest accomplishment, my greatest blessing! The three happiest days of my life are the days when my children were born. I hope I\u2019ve passed on to them the desire to be good people, good listeners, and open-minded. When I look at them, I tell myself that I\u2019ve succeeded!\u201d<\/p>\n
A FREE AND COMMITTED FAITH<\/h3>\n
\u201cWhen I was younger, I was a pastoral animator. The priest was kind and believed that women had their place in the Church. After a confirmation, he invited me to eat with the group. There were nine of us, and I was the only woman, naturally.<\/p>\n
Jean-Jacques introduced me, and the first question one of the men at the table asked me was, \u2018What does your husband do for work?\u2019 I could have slapped him. I was so angry. What does that have to do with anything? As far as I was concerned, he wanted to know if I was married\u2026 I replied, \u2018My husband is an industrialist,\u2019 and went and sat down at the other end of the table. I said to another priest, \u2018I don\u2019t want to talk to him ever again.\u2019<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been a churchgoer all my life, but I\u2019ve also been very critical of certain things in religion, including the place that the Church gave, and still gives, to women. So I\u2019m a churchgoer who listens to her heart. I\u2019m not by the book, I choose what I do and what I don\u2019t do.<\/p>\n
When I was 18, I founded the YCW (Young Christian Workers) in our parish. It gave me extraordinary energy. Thirty-five girls followed me, and I became the president. We had meetings where we exchanged girls\u2019 stories: work, dating, relationships with parents, marriage. I always felt very close to the girls, they confided in me, and I realized that being socially involved made me incredibly happy. I\u2019ve loved helping others all my life!\u201d<\/p>\n
AGING GRACEFULLY<\/h3>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel old. There are often those who say, \u2018Getting old is no fun\u2026\u2019 But I don\u2019t agree. It\u2019s true that I\u2019m lucky, I drive my car, I go where I want, I do my own shopping. I still have all my activities, I still go to concerts, and even energetic concerts, sometimes! The other day I went to see FouKi with MindFlip as the opening act. I also go to country concerts. Matt Lang is really good! I\u2019m often accompanied by Lise, one of my friends, or by my new boyfriend, Ren\u00e9, with whom I\u2019ve been in a relationship for a year and a half now.\u201d<\/p>\n
LOVE AT EVERY AGE<\/h3>\n
\u201cRen\u00e9 and I have known each other for a long time, maybe 40 years. His wife, Marie-Paul, was my good friend. He looked after her for 12 years before she died of a degenerative disease. His devotion was incredible.<\/p>\n
Before that, the four of us took several trips together. We went to Italy, to France, we often went to Florida. In my mind, Ren\u00e9 was Marie-Paul\u2019s spouse, and that was it. We got on well. The four of us had a lot of fun together.<\/p>\n
After Marie died, I often went to see Ren\u00e9 on Thursdays, after running errands at the nearby Pharmaprix. I\u2019d check up on him and ask how he was doing. Most of the time, he\u2019d just come back from playing golf and he\u2019d be eating a meal, so he\u2019d give me a small glass of wine, we\u2019d chat, and I\u2019d head home. At one point he said to me, \u2018Tomorrow I\u2019m having wine and cheese, would you like to come for dinner?\u2019 I said, \u2018Yes, I\u2019d love to!\u2019 Two weeks later, I returned the invitation, and it started like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
LONGEVITY: A LIFE CHOICE, NOT OLD AGE<\/h3>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you have to live to old age at all costs. But in good health, with a reason to live, yes! I like my life, I like growing old, I have my boyfriend. In fact, he\u2019s a bit younger than me. I\u2019m like Janette Bertrand, I like them younger! (laughs)<\/p>\n
If I became very sick and had no quality of life left, I\u2019d be in favour of medical assistance in dying\u2026 But I\u2019ve realized recently that it\u2019s not such a simple choice to make, to choose death. Some time ago, I had to go to the emergency room for a heart and lung problem, and in the evening, the doctor said to me, \u2018I saw in your file that you had marked \u201cno resuscitation.\u201d If something happens tonight, do you still agree with that?\u2019<\/p>\n
Oh dear! I said, \u2018You can try it at least once\u2026\u2019 (laughs) I wasn\u2019t that sick!<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing to say to yourself, \u2018Yes, that\u2019s what I\u2019d do\u2019 when you\u2019re well, but when you\u2019re faced with it, that\u2019s another thing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you have to live to old age at all costs.\u201d Photo on the left: \u00a9 Julie Allard On a cold February afternoon, we travelled to Victoriaville to meet Jeanne-Mance Houle. At the age of 86, this radiant, generous and visionary woman welcomed us into her home with inspiring kindness. Through her vocation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":64698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1973],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64708"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64727,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64708\/revisions\/64727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.stromspa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Blogue_JM_photos-800x1200.jpg\")
\nJeanne-Mance during her involvement with Young Christian Workers. <\/span>
\nJeanne-Mance and Yvon at the time of their engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"