Draft:Amanda Viger

Amanda Viger, known as Saint-Jean-de-Goto, was born on July 27, 1845 in Boucherville, Quebec to her parents Bonaventure Viger and Eudoxie Trudel. She completed her secondary studies at the Congregation of Notre-Dame in Boucherville’s boarding school. At the age of 15, she entered the Religious Hospitallers of Saint-Joseph of Montreal and then made her religious profession by taking her religious vows on February 2, 1863. September 29, 1868,at the age of 23, she arrived in Tracadie, New Brunswick, alongside five other founding sisters. Then, on December 9, 1873, she opened a school that gained 50 students within 15 days of opening. Viger helped establish a foundation of hospitallers, a leper hospital, school, and orphanage. At the request of Father Gauvreau, pastor in Tracadie, the RHSJ were asked to come to care for the lepers. In September 1868, Amanda Viger (St. Jean de Goto) accompanied Mother Page and her companions, Sisters Eulalie Quesnel, Delphine Breau, Clemence Bonin and  Philomene Fournier, known as Lumina, to go to the Lazaretto where the lepers were kept. Little by little, they transformed it into a well organized hospital. In 1880 the lazaretto became the responsibility of the Federal government who entrusted the administration to the Sisters. In 1896, the Federal government built a stone lazaretto, with one section reserved for the Sisters. In 1898, they were successful in building a hospital made of stone. During close to 100 years, from 1868 to 1965, when the lazaretto was closed, 326 patients including about forty from different nationalities, were treated at the Lazaretto in Tracadie. In January 1943, all the buildings were destroyed by fire. A new Hotel Dieu, including the lazaretto and monastery, were reconstructed in 1946. The Sisters responded to the need for training nurses by establishing a school of nursing, which was operative from 1947-1963. They also offered a practical nursing program from 1951-1973. The Sisters were engaged in both health care and education apostolates at one and the same time. They opened a day school in 1873 in which 50 boys and girls from Tracadie were enrolled. It closed in 1885, but in 1889, the Sisters opened an orphanage in the Hotel Dieu. In 1875, at age thirty Sister Saint-Jean-de-Goto was elected as superior of her community. She was elected as mother superior seven more times. In 1902 Sister Saint-Jean-de-Goto was elected superior of the Hôtel-Dieu of Arthabaskaville (Arthabaska). She helped relieve them of their financial difficulties. In 1903, she became sick with cancer, but she began a project to build a new five-story wing for those in need living in the surrounding area. On 8 May 1906, she died.