Find of the Month – Perpetual Calendar

Every month, an object from the heritage bequest by the Augustinian community is selected by the museum storage facility and archives center teams. Featured this month: a perpetual calendar

This lovely perpetual calendar represents the Canadian house, which still stands in the Augustinian Sisters’ garden today. Erected in the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec monastery’s garden for the festivities honouring the tricentennial anniversary of its foundation in 1939, the house was used as a boutique to sell local art and crafts. Celebrating the event with pomp, the Augustinian Sisters organized a five-day long fair in the gardens. Seven small pavilions were built in total, each one on the theme of the province of Quebec and the Augustinian Sisters’ history.

Initially built in the southern part of the garden, the Canadian house was then moved to its current location, likely during the construction of the Saint-Augustin wing in the ‘50s.

This calendar was sculpted by Sister Fernande Boulanger. Born in 1909 in Sainte-Agathe de Lotbinière, Sister Boulanger, known as Sister Saint-Maurice, always loved creative art. But her passion for woodworking really came about in 1936 after meeting sulptor Médard Bourgault upon his visiting the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec when his wife was hospitalized there. He gave Sister Boulanger pieces of linden so she could practice. 

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On August 1, 2019, the Augustinians celebrated the 380th anniversary of the founding of Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, America’s first hospital in northern Mexico.