The Marichette Foundation bears the pen name of a woman with a big heart, Émilie C. LeBlanc. This teacher from Memramcook, who lived from 1863 to 1935, published many letters in the newspaper L'Évangéline from 1895 to 1898. She presented herself as a poor and poorly educated mother of many children.
Her letters denounced social injustices, especially against Acadians and women, such as the right to speak, to education and the right to vote.
Women's right to speak
Marichette did not hesitate to draw her own conclusions about the qualities bestowed on women by the Creator. She also took the opportunity to teach men a lesson.
March 1897
"We have a language and know how to use it and a brain itou. J'heu (God) has yawned more spirit to us than to the men. When He made the woman He found Adam, the boss of all men, sleeping on his stomach in the sun, too lazy to work in his garden, pulled out the brains and took the best stuff from inside and made the woman who saved the men from sinking. »
MARICHETTE, Lettres acadiennes, Pierre et Pierre M. GÉRIN
Women's education and language
Coming from a very modest background, at a time when girls had difficulty gaining access to education, Marichette denounced realities that she found unjust.
February 1895
".......... I have my youngest daughter whom I want to have educated, and in French only. My two older girls I sent to school for several years, but the teacher didn't want to teach them French, that we would be mocked if we spoke it in front of strangers, and so all our young girls from now on are being educated in English........ and are ashamed to speak to their mothers in French. »
MARICHETTE, Lettres acadiennes, Pierre et Pierre M. GÉRIN
Women's right to vote
Marichette was passionately interested in politics in Acadian communities and was sorry that women did not have the right to vote anywhere in the country.
February 1895
"I want to write to tell you that I am tired of waiting for the law to pass in the House for the suffering of women to give us the right to vote. In the meantime, women are suffering from the urge to go to the polls to show old people how to vote. »
MARICHETTE, Lettres acadiennes, Pierre et Pierre M. GÉRIN.