Sr. Gilberte Marie Belhumeur, FMM, 98, of Holy Family Community, died on January 31, 2015 at the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary Assisted Living Residence in North Providence. RI. Born in Providence, RI February 6, 1916, she was the daughter of the late Henry and Valeda (Bilodeau) Belhumeur. Sr. Gilberte felt the first stirrings of her missionary vocation at the age of 11. In a church where a missionary was speaking to the congregation about the people in Africa and their needs, he mentioned the sad faces of the children there. Gilberte made an inner promise that very moment to go to Africa to get the African children to smile. Based on that promise, so important for Sr. Gilberte, she began to seriously consider religious life, and in 1941 followed her sister Annette into the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, entering in Quebec, Canada during the war years. In the Quebec convent referred to as Grand Allee, there was a large printing press that Gilberte learned to run and where she worked for ten years. Because the French Province needed her skills, Sr. Gilberte was missioned to Vanves, where she worked on the presses for twenty years. Gilberte believed that her dream of going to Africa was fulfilled in this indirect way, due to her part in the written word coming from and going to Africa and others parts of the world. Sr. Gilberte returned to the States in 1971 and because her mother was elderly and frail, she helped her mother at home for twelve years. After her mother’s death, Sr. Gilberte was missioned to St. Francis Community in Roslyn NY briefly, and then to the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary Infirmary in North Providence, Fruit Hill, where she assisted in caring for the sisters in their many practical and pastoral needs. Many who have experienced Gilberte described her as a “gentle breeze”; a quiet, devoted presence; one who worked faithfully without complaint.” Even though Sr .Gilberte never went to Africa to make the children smile, she felt that there were many little ways in which she was able to make our sick and elderly sisters smile. Always a good walker, Sr. Gilberte liked to take long walks and believed that as a religious, it was important to be a presence in the world. She prayed often that people would realize the importance of God in their everyday lives, just as it was in the stories she heard about soldiers in the trenches calling out to God. This intention, we can believe, will continue to be hers now that Gilberte has gone home to God. She is survived by her sister, Annette who is a Franciscan Missionary in Quebec, Canada and her brother Paul from California, many nieces and grandnieces, nephews and grandnephews. Visiting hours will be on Wednesday, February 4, 2015 from 4 to 8 p.m., with a Wake Service at 7 p.m., in the Holy Family Chapel, 399 Fruit Hill Avenue, North Providence. The Funeral Mass will be at Holy Family Chapel, Thursday, February 5, 2015 at 11 a.m. Her family requested that in place of flowers, donations be made to the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. Arrangements by Russell J. Boyle and Son Funeral Home. For complete obituary, visit: www.boyleandsonfuneralhome.com
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