Duperreault, Marie-Anne (1885-1976)

Joseph Duperreault and Marie-Anne Duperreault (“Perrette”), at their first home, Willow Bunch district, 1924-25.

Saskatchewan Archives Board R-A24117

Despite her heavy obligations as farm wife and mother of twelve, Marie-Anne Duperreault was able to chronicle the main events of life on a farm in the Palliser triangle between 1910 and 1940. Born Marie-Anne Boucher on September 25, 1885, in the Laurentian village of St. Damien de Brandon, she was a school teacher when she married Joseph Duperreault in 1904. The couple settled on a homestead near Willow Bunch in 1907. She became local correspondent for Saskatchewan’s French-language newspaper, Le Patriote de l’Ouest, soon after it was launched in 1910, and chose the pseudonym “Perrette” from one of La Fontaine’s fables. Despite often harsh living conditions, the naturally optimistic Duperreault described, with style and verve, various aspects of farm and community life, and celebrated the beauty of the land. She dealt with education, religion and politics, as well as with the threat faced by the French minority in Saskatchewan. She served as women’s page editor, always without pay, until the Patriote was moved to Manitoba in 1941. Many of her articles were assembled in a book published in 1969. She was also active in local French-language literary, drama, choral, and women’s groups. After the death of her husband in 1961, she retired to Vancouver and died there on January 6, 1976.

Richard Lapointe