Aurore Gagnon

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Aurore Gagnon ( French pronunciation: [ ɔˈʁɔʁ ɡɑˈɲɔ̃ ]) (born May 31, 1909 in Sainte-Philomène-de-Fortierville , Québec ; † February 12, 1920 ibid) was a Canadian girl and victim of child abuse . She died of over 50 wounds inflicted on her by her stepmother Marie-Anne Houde and her father Télesphore Gagnon, exhaustion and blood poisoning . The story of the enfant martyre (German martyr child or little martyr ) attracted a lot of media attention. Aurore Gagnon became an icon of Québec sociology and pop culture.

history

Aurore Gagnon (baptized Marie-Aurore-Lucienne Gagnon ) was born into a Roman Catholic family. She was the second child of Télesphore Gagnons and his first wife Marie-Anne Caron, whom he married in September 1906. Télesphore Gagnon was a wealthy farmer from the small village of Sainte-Philomène-de-Fortierville, on the southern coast of the Saint Lawrence River , about 100 kilometers southwest of Québec . The Gagnons' first child, Marie-Jeanne, was born on August 1, 1907, followed by Aurore (1909), Georges-Étienne (1913) and Joseph (1915).

Shortly after Joseph was born, Marie-Anne Caron was admitted to the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec for tuberculosis . Marie-Anne Houde, widow of a cousin of Télesphore Gagnon, soon moved in with the Gagnons so that she could look after the house and the children. The approximately 30-year-old woman already had two sons, Gérard and Georges-Henri. She came from Sainte-Sophie-de-Lévrard , a neighboring municipality of Fortierville. Many strange things happened to the Gagnons after their arrival.

In November 1917, two-year-old Joseph was found dead in his bed. According to an inquest, he died of natural causes.

Marie-Anne Caron died of her illness on January 23, 1918. Since he could not take care of his farm and his children alone, Télesphore Gagnon married Marie-Anne Houde a week later.

The children lived with their grandparents in Leclercville, a neighboring parish, for a few months and did not return to their father until the summer of 1919. After that, Aurore's six-month abuse began. In addition to the physical abuse, Marie-Anne Houde cut her stepdaughter's hair carelessly and tried to give her some detergent to drink (according to some eyewitness accounts). Aurore was admitted to the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec that fall after her stepmother burned her foot with a red-hot poker.

After she returned home, the abuse started again. Aurore died on February 12, 1920 under unknown circumstances; the death was reported to the police.

Aurore Gagnon was autopsied by the doctor Albert Marois. He noticed 54 injuries all over the girl's body. These injuries were the result of multiple blows, but none of the wounds was inherently fatal. The worst injury was on the skull. The scalp was covered with blood and pus. The left thigh was swollen. The skin on the fingers and wrists was torn down to the bone.

Aurore Gagnon's funeral took place on February 14th. After the funeral, Marie-Anne Houde and Télesphore Gagnon were arrested.

Marie-Anne Houde was initially sentenced to death for murder , later the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment . After Houde had served 15 years, she was released on word of honor for health reasons. On May 13, 1936, she died of breast and brain cancer.

Télesphore Gagnon was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to life in prison. After five years in prison, he was released for good conduct. He returned to his hometown, where he wrote several letters to his wife, who was still in prison. After the death of Marie-Anne Houdes, Télesphore remarried. He died in September 1961.

Aurore's older sister Marie-Jeanne died in Shawinigan in 1986 .

Culture and legend

The trials had attracted hundreds of people and each trial had to turn away many people. Because of the detailed descriptions of the trials and the testimony, two actors, Henri Rollin and Léon PetitJean, were inspired to write a play about the crime. The play was called Aurore, l'enfant martyre ( Aurore, the martyr child ) and the premiere took place on January 21, 1921 at the Théâtre Alcazar de Montréal . The premiere was a huge success. Six actresses took turns playing the role of stepmother: Amanda d'Estrée, Germaine Germain, Nana de Varennes, Rose Rey-Duzil, Henriette Berthier and Lucie Mitchell. Thérèse McKinnon played the role of Aurore.

In 1950, filming began on a film about Aurore Gagnon's life. The director Jean-Yves Bigras based the script on a novel by Émile Asselin. The film was made in the summer of 1951; The film was set in Sainte-Dorothée, a small community in the Île Jésus in northern Montreal. Lucie Mitchell played the role of the stepmother and Paul Desmarteaux played that of the father. Thérèse McKinnon, who had played Aurore Gagnon on stage for years, played her birth mother this time. Yvonne Laflamme played Aurore. The film was to be released in the fall of 1951; Télesphore Gagnon tried in vain to stop the publication.

The first broadcast of the film La Petite Aurore, l'enfant martyre was on April 25, 1952 at the Théâtre Saint-Denis . The film was later translated into 8 languages.

2004 saw the premiere of a new film about Aurore Gagnon, Aurore , with Denise Robert as producer and Luc Dionne as director. In September about 10,000 young actresses auditioned for the role of Aurore, and Marianne Fortier , then 11 , got the role. The other leading actors were Serge Postigo (Télesphore Gagnon), Hélène Bourgeois-Leclerc (Marie-Anne Houde), Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse (Marie-Jeanne Gagnon), Yves Jacques (Father Antoine Leduc) and Rémy Girard (Oréus Mailhot). A peculiarity of this film is that it falsely insinuates that pastor Ferdinand Massé ( called Antoine Leduc in the film ) had encouraged Marie-Anne Houde to treat her stepdaughter very strictly. Just like the first film, this one was also a huge hit; grossing for the first weekend was C $ 972,582 , a summer record for a Quebec film at the time.

Even today, the Aurore Gagnon murder is believed by many to be the turning point of justice for children in Quebec and even across Canada.

On December 7, 2015, Aurore Gagnon was identified by Fortierville as a "historical figure" (French personnage historique ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dictionnaire Biographique du Canada en ligne, GAGNON, AURORE
  2. ↑ Généalogie Télesphore Gagnon . Retrieved January 10, 2019.
  3. ↑ Généalogie Télesphore Gagnon . Retrieved January 10, 2019.
  4. ^ Aurore , p. 304
  5. ^ Hélène-Andrée Bizier, La petite histoire du crime au Québec , Stanké, 1981, p. 182
  6. ↑ Hélène-Andrée Bizier, La petite histoire du crime au Québec , Stanké, 1981, p. 16
  7. ↑ Marie-Jeanne Gagnon (biography)
  8. ↑ Jean Cournoyer, La Mémoire du Québec , Stanké, 2001, pp. 530-531
  9. ↑ L'affaire de la petite Aurore , p. 27
  10. ^ L'affaire de la petite Aurore , p. 23
  11. ^ Aurore, la vraie histoire (documentary, Radio-Canada, 2004)
  12. ↑ Le Soleil , July 11, 2005
  13. ↑ Gagnon, Aurore . Retrieved January 17, 2016.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gagnon, Aurore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gagnon, Marie-Aurore-Lucienne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian victim of child abuse
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Sainte-Philomène-de-Fortierville, Québec
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 1920
Place of death Sainte-Philomène-de-Fortierville, Québec