Ask someone how to pronounce D’Youville College and you’ll often get blank stares, even here in Western New York. Ask them who the College was named after and the blank stares remain blank. In recognition of Saint Marguerite d'Youville’s Feast Day on October 16, let’s get to know the College’s namesake.
Born October 15, 1701, Marguerite de la Jemmerais married Francois D’Youville when she was 20 years old. D’Youville was apparently an unscrupulous man, finding himself in domestic trouble and financial debt as a result of unsavory behavior and selling liquor illegally to the Indian population. When he died, he left Marguerite with two young children to raise alone, after having to bury four other children.
Marguerite D’Youville’s desire to serve those in need, particularly the poor, led to her work with the Sisters of Charity, or the Grey Nuns—those who shared her service-oriented values. Her business acumen and social worker strategies were noted when the Grey Nuns of the Cross came to Buffalo from Ottawa to establish Holy Angels Academy (1857-1908).
In 1908, Holy Angels Academy was expanded to include D’Youville College, the first college in Western New York to offer baccalaureate degrees for women. D’Youville synthesized the Catholic social and intellectual traditions. D’Youville also embraced the charism of Marguerite D’Youville’s Grey Nuns, that is, to respond to exigencies and to never refuse to serve. In so doing, D’Youville’s founders and educators throughout the last 112 years have espoused these values: teaching, caring, family, religion, and service.
A compassionate woman, a wife and mother of six, a widow at 28, an entrepreneur, the founder of the Grey Nuns, Marguerite D’Youville was elevated to the status of blessed in 1959 by Pope John XXIII, who gave her the title of “Mother of Universal Charity,” and canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1990, the first native-born Canadian to be declared a saint.
Your gift to the Fund for D'Youville today will help to enable our students to follow in the footsteps of St. Marguerite. Together, we can help support them in their service projects both here in Buffalo and in their travels for D'Youville's Lend A Hand program.
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