Ursule LANDRY
Ursule and Leprosy

"One sultry August afternoon in the year 1828 the Rev. Mr. de Bellefeuille, a missionary priest visiting Tracadie, was called upon to bury a woman named Ursule Landry who died of a mysteious and loathsome disease to which none could qive a name. Her flesh had become hard and scaly; hideous swellings distorted her face and form; spots of a brownish tint appeared upon her limb...

Pauvre Ursule! There are some in Tracadie who hate that woman, who say she brought a curse on all of us. But I don't blame her for 'La maladie' any more than I would blame the weather or the food that ue ate... though there are those who believe the climate, cold and damp, brought it to our shores or that it is caused by the salted fish.

I was a girl of fifteen when Ursule died; so I knew her, a small woman with rounded shoulders who used two walking sticks to stand. Her face was hidden under a veil qnd she always wore a bonnet.

For the last year of the disease, she stayed in her cabin with only her husband and her sister Isabelle to tend her. The children were grown up.

It was said that she used to be a fine looking woman, that her skin was as smooth as a field of snow and her hair tumbled out from under her bonnet like curls of butter.

Her mother was Marie Brideau, born in Quebec. Marie came to Caraquet when she was twelve. Later the Brideaus moved to Tracadie but by that time, Marie was married to Anselme and they had Ursule and the others. Sixteen children wtre born to them.

Ursule's grandfather, Alexis Landry, fought the English at Fort Beausejour. Later he and his family followed Charles Boishebert. There were three thousand Acadians who followed him and they were all in hiding around the Miramichi. Ah, they rambled then, feeding off the land, trying to find a place where they'd be safe.

They went to Caraquet once but they were scared off; then they went to Miscou and they stayed there a while; then to Gaspe. This was before they came back to Caraquet. Anselme and Marie Brideau were married there.

None of the people in Ursule's family had the disease before her. There were doctors, Bayard qnd Wilson, who said Alexis was born in St. Malo and that the disease came from there. That wasn't true.

Old Remi, Anselme's brother, was ninety-nine years old when the doctors came. He told them Alexis was born in St. Malo because he didn't want them to know they were Acadians. He was scared, you see.

We were all scared of the English, all of us. We would agree to anything they said... as long as they left us alone.

Anyway, Ursule was twenty when she married loseph Benoit and they came to Tracadie to live. Isabelle, her sister, three years younger, married Firmin Benoit, Joseph's brother and they were neighbours.

Ursule had five children, the youngest nearly ten, when she began to complain her legs ached. Then the spots nnd swellings started. Everyone in the
village had something to say about it and all the remedies of the 'sage femme' were tried. She was fifty when the missionary said the prayers over her grave.

After Ursule caught it, Isabelle got sick. Joseph got the disease too but not Firmin. What was lucky for Joseph and Ursule was none of their children took it.

Francois Saulnier got it, like the papers say, from carrying Ursule's coffin; then his sister Adelaide. I married Jean Bsptiste, their brother. He didn't get it, but I did. I am Marguerite Robichaud. Whenever the authors seem like they're going to forget us, I'll tell you our story, the leper's story."


Children of Lararus: The Story of the Lazaretto at Tracadie; Provincial House, Bathurst, NB

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