Hospice Gamelin

The Hospice Gamelin opened in 1830 on the corner of Saint-Laurent and Sainte-Catherine Street, as a shelter for elderly women. The Hospice expanded and moved several times thereafter, eventually in 1836 occupying a house (the "Yellow House") on the corner of Sainte-Catherine and Lacroix Street. The founder, Émile Gamelin, was born in 1800 in Montreal. She devoted her life to the sick and poor after the death of her husband and three children when she was 27. In 1844, she became the Mother Superior of a new religious congregation (Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor, later to be called Sisters of Providence). In 1894, a large building officially designated the Hospice Gamelin was built next to the Congregation’s Convent House. This building was demolished in 1963 to permit construction of the downtown Montreal Berri-UQAM Metro station. The land where it was located is now the Place Émile-Gamelin.