Marie-Angelique Houde

Biography

Marie-Angélique Houde belonged to a family whose house and land formed part of the early religious life of Sainte-Croix, on the St. Lawrence’s south bank upstream from Québec city in present-day Québec, Canada. Her parents were Louis Houde and Madeleine Boucher. Local history records that worship had taken place in Louis's house and that he later gave land for a chapel. Born about 1684, Marie-Angélique grew up within that household's established connections to the developing parish.

Her agreement to marry Guillaume Rognon appears in a later family estate document, which dates the marriage contract to April 7, 1698.

The agreement still had financial consequences many years later. When her father's estate was divided in 1712, a marriage portion of 200 livres remained payable to Guillaume. A receipt from December 1713 records Guillaume and Simon Houde jointly receiving eighty livres on account. These transactions show how the obligations created at marriage continued to connect Marie-Angélique's household with her brothers and her father's estate.

The family study identifies children including Marie-Jeanne, Marie-Louise, Françoise, Michel, Jean-Baptiste, and Gervais. Marie-Angélique was buried at Lotbinière on April 23, 1727. An inventory following her death was drawn up before the notary Dehorné that August. The paperwork that had preserved her marriage portion thus gives way to the settlement of the household she left behind.