Simonne Monet-Chartrand

[3] A dark stain on her otherwise idyllic childhood was the death of her brother Roger, of tuberculosis; Monet-Chartrand also caught the disease, but she survived thanks to a long stay in a sanatorium in the Laurentides.

[4][2] Her activist career began with joining the Jeunesse Étudiante Chrétienne, a youth organization of the Catholic social movement, during her student years.

[5] She led the organization's provincial-level board of directors and began to work with a number of influential activist figures, including fellow Catholic youth leader Michel Chartrand.

[6] Her upper-class family opposed her relationship with the working-class Chartrand—they temporarily sent her to Chicago in the United States in an effort to split the couple up, and three priests refused to marry them before they could find one who would agree to do so.

[1] In the 1950s, Monet-Chartrand joined the labor movement, helping the wives of strikers and arguing that women should be able to participate in union contract negotiations.

[14] Monet-Chartrand also worked as a journalist, contributing to various publications as a writer, including Châtelaine, La Vie en rose, and Les têtes de pioche.

[1] Her work as a writer also included her four-volume autobiography, Ma vie comme rivière, which was originally published in 1981 and re-issued with updates in 1992.

[19] In September 2023, Monet-Chartrand was one of three Quebec feminists and trade unionists, along with Madeleine Parent and Léa Roback, honoured by Canada Post with a postage stamp.