Henriette Odin Feller

Henriette Odin Feller (April 22, 1800 – March 29, 1868) was a Swiss-born Protestant missionary to Lower Canada. She established the first Francophone Protestant community in Quebec.

The daughter of Alexandre Nicolas Odin, municipal secretary, and Jeanne Marie Gachet, she was born Henriette Odin in Montagny in the canton of Vaud and moved to Lausanne with her parents three years later.[1][2]

In 1822, Odin married Louis Feller, the director of the Lausanne police. Over the next five years, her daughter, husband, sister and mother died. She contracted typhoid fever and took a rest cure at the Jura. In 1827, she left the official Protestant church; she became involved with the Société des Missions Évangéliques de Lausanne. In 1835, she left for Canada with Louis Roussy. Opposed by the Catholic clergy in Quebec, she settled in Grande-Ligne, where the clergy had less influence. During the Lower Canada Rebellion, the patriotes viewed the missionaries as sympathetic to their English opponents and Feller and her converts fled to the United States. Following the Rebellion, Feller found that she was better received in Grande-Ligne; her group also gained some sympathy in the United States which helped them raise funds in support of the mission. Feller came down with pneumonia in 1855 which led her to rest in the southern United States and later Switzerland without much improvement. In 1865, she became paralyzed and was confined to her room.[1][3]

Although Feller did not join it, she was instrumental in inspiring the creation of the French Canadian Missionary Society in 1839, which had the aim of converting French Canadians to Protestantism.[1]

The Institut Feller, established in 1855, was expanded in 1880 and continued to operate until 1967.[2]

She died in Grande-Ligne, Quebec at the age of 67.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Hardy, René (1976). "Henriette Odin Feller". In Halpenny, Francess G. Dictionary of Canadian Biography. IX (1861–1870) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
  2. 1 2 "Feller [-Odin], Henriette". Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (in French).
  3. ↑ Choquette, Robert (2004). Canada's Religions: An Historical Introduction. pp. 186–87. ISBN 0776605577.
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