Born in France in 1792 during the French Revolution, she was the sixth of eight children born to Joseph and Marie. 

Her father was a fisherman and was lost at sea when she was just three and a half years old. 

When Jeanne was sixteen, she got a job as a kitchen aid for Vice Countess De La Cheau, who was a devout Catholic, and she asked Jeanne to go with her as she ministered to the poor and sick. 

Then, at twenty-five, she joined the Congregation of Jesus and Mary and worked numerous jobs including teaching Catechism and as a nurse. 

In 1837, she met a 72-year-old woman named Francois Aubair and a seventeen-year-old orphan named Virginie Tre Daniel. 

They rented a house together and the three began a community devoted to prayer, helping the poor, and teaching Catechism. 

But soon, they were taking in women of need and, in just a few years, they found themselves providing for nearly fifty people, as their Mission shifted to caring for abandoned elderly women. 

This was the beginning of the congregation that would come to be known as The Little Sisters of the Poor. 

In 1849, Jeanne established a second house in Tours and just a few years later the Congregation had grown to include several other houses in France and England, providing care for 500 elderly women with the help of 100 sisters. 

A priest, who had been made Superior, Fr. August La Pallier, refused to recognize Jeanne as Foundress and had her removed from all of her duties except begging, which is how she spent the last 27 years of her life. 

By the time of her death on this day in 1879, The Little Sisters of The Poor had expanded across Europe and into North America, with 24 hundred sisters. But, by then, many did not know she was their foundress. 

In 1890, after an investigation, Fr. La Pallier was removed from his position and Sister Jeanne Jugan was finally recognized as the Foundress of The Little Sisters of The Poor. 

St. Jeanne Jugan, please pray for us.