Marie-Françoise Alavoine

Biography

Marie-Françoise Alavoine appears repeatedly beside the baptismal font at Michilimackinac, in the Straits of Mackinac region of present-day Michigan. In July and August 1744 she stood as godmother when two of her daughters’ marriages were accompanied by ceremonies for their children. The mission register records her signature as Manon Lavoine Chevalier. These entries place her within the family’s life at the trading post in her own right.

She had been born far from the Great Lakes, at La Rochelle, on France’s Atlantic coast, on September 30, 1691, and baptized there two days later. Her parents were the merchant Charles Alavoine and Marie-Thérèse Machard. She came to Canada with her mother and is first recorded in the colony in 1695. At Notre-Dame in Montréal, on April 8, 1709, she married Jean-Baptiste Chevalier.

In May 1742 she had already served as godmother alongside the post’s commandant, Céloron. Her repeated sponsorships continued across the next decade, placing her among the people called upon to witness and participate in the community’s religious ceremonies.

Her children’s marriages connected the family with several households at Michilimackinac. Marie-Anne married Charles Chaboyer, Marie-Josèphe married Pierre Renaud dit Locas, and Anne-Charlotte-Véronique married René Bourassa. Marie-Françoise’s presence continued into widowhood: a February 1752 baptism bears her signature identifying herself as Chevalier’s widow.

Marie-Françoise’s own last years ended in Montréal, where she died on March 19, 1756 and was buried the following day.