EARLY YEARS IN THE SAINT-MICHEL DE VAUDREUIL VILLAGE

Léonise Valois was born on October 11, 1868 in Vaudreuil¹, in the family home located at 6 Saint-Michel Street². Her parents Louis-Joseph-Avila Valois (1837-1898) and Marie-Louise Bourque (1844-1922), both Vaudreuil natives, named their daughter Marie-Atala-Amanda-Léonise Valois³ at her baptism in the Saint-Michel de Vaudreuil Church. It is under the pseudonym of one of her baptismal names, Atala⁴, that she signed her poems and became known as a columnist addressing women's issues.

Her father being a doctor, she came from a wealthy family. Léonise Valois completed her elementary studies in Vaudreuil, from 1872 to 1879. Under the Sisters of Saint Anne, she first studied at the congregation’s convent located at across the street from the family residence (Saint-Michel Street), then at the convent’s second building near the Saint-Michel Church in Vaudreuil⁵. Between 1880-1883, she continued her studies, boarding with the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in Beauharnois.

DEPARTURE FOR MONTRÉAL AND LITERARY CAREER

In 1886, the Valois family left Vaudreuil and settled in Montréal, as her father wished to become more active in politics and expand his clientele.

From an early age, she developed a love and talent for writing, especially for poetry. In 1889, she published her first poem Aimer! in Le Recueil littéraire. Determined and fearless following this first success, she began a career as a journalist and writer. From 1900 to 1902, she worked for Le Monde illustré as a journalist for the column Au coin du feu under the pseudonym Atala. From 1900 to 1931, she wrote for several magazines and newspapers such as La Presse, La Patrie, L'Autorité (founded and directed by Roger Maillet, co-founder of the Musée régional de Vaudreuil-Soulanges), Le journal de Françoise, La Revue Moderne and also the regional newspaper L'Écho de Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

In 1910, she published her first collection of poems Fleurs sauvages, followed in 1934 by another, Feuilles tombées, with a preface by her friend from Vaudreuil, Abbot Lionel Groulx (1878-1967). In 1936, her body of work won the Société des poètes canadiens-français contest.

VAUDREUIL, SOURCE OF INSPIRATION

Throughout her life, Léonise Valois returned to the Vaudreuil area every summer to visit friends and family. Each year, she rented a summer house near the Ottawa River to reconnect with nature and the landscapes she loved⁶. Her poems Paysages de velours, Sur l’eau and La voix des pins are filled with childhood memories of a picturesque Vaudreuil. Along with Laure Conan and Gaétane de Montreuil⁷, Léonise Valois was a pioneer in Québec literature, at a time where journalism was a male-dominated field and where female voices were rarely heard until the 1890s.

She died at the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal on May 20, 1936 and was buried in the Saint-Michel Church Cemetery in Vaudreuil three days later.