Léger played the title role in Antonine Maillet’s play, personifying the resilience of her people, and went on to defend her culture as a member of Canada’s senate
For 45 years, Viola Léger, actor, educator, Canadian senator and icon of Acadian culture, spent countless hours wearing rags and scrubbing floors.
Ms. Maillet, the distinguished Acadian author and playwright, was effusive in her praise for her late colleague and friend. “I owe a lot to Viola,” she said, speaking to The Globe and Mail from her Montreal home. “I may have given La Sagouine her words, but it was Viola who gave her a face and a heart and a soul.”
The Légers were also devout Catholics and, at 18, Viola left for New Brunswick and joined the nuns of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Coeur in Memramcook. As Sister Andréa-Marie, she studied and later taught at the Collège Notre-Dame d’Acadie, alongside fellow teacher and nun Antonine Maillet, who was then Sister Marie-Grégoire.
“She was a natural-born actress,” said Ms. Maillet, who had first seen her perform in their college days and felt she’d be perfect for the role. Ms. Léger was nervous at first, having never acted alone onstage, but her enthusiasm for the play won her over.
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