Leonie Martin: A Difficult Life

Leonie Martin was the least gifted of the four sisters of St. Therese of Lisieux. She was an emotionally disturbed child who suffered and caused anguish in her family. Her mother, the heroic Zelie Martin, suffered most of all. Marie Baudouin-Croix, well known French poet, has examined Zelie's correspondence with her daughters, her sister, her brother, and her sister-in-law. We see the backward child, the despair of many, who was the first to follow Therese's Little Way. It was only after three valiant but unsuccessful attempts that Leonie was finally accepted by the Visitation Order in Caen. She succeeded in conquering a 'tough' temperament, so that by the time of her death in 1941, at the age of seventy-eight, she was regarded as a saint and her convent at Caen was inundated with letters testifying to her posthumous aid.