mother - more
Stéphanie Adèle Belzamine Vandelet (1.12.1812-19.3.1883) - in contrast to her husband - was marked by an education that gave great importance to a personal and missionary faith.
Stéphanie A. Vandelet gives birth to three children, but at the age of only four years Leo dies, a few months before the birth of Leo Gustave Dehon. In his memories Fr. Dehon reports, that his mother breaks into tears every time she remembers her deceased little son, and when Leo Gustave Dehon at the age of four gets seriously ill, terrible fears rise up in her. After Leo's recovery motherly care increases.
"My mother was the one, who had the largest influence on me, and she still speaks to me with authority, which deeply penetrates me" (NQT XII(1897, 72), remembers Fr. Dehon about his mother in 1894.
From her, and at her side, he learns to pray, with her he goes to church, she is at the beginning of his first religious memories, she inspires him to Sacred Heart devotion, to a Marian spirit (La Salette) and the admiration of St. Joseph, the saints of her childhood (Luis de Gonzaga, Stanislas Kostka) also accompany Leo Dehon. He himself describes the special kind of educational process: "My mother's beautiful soul somewhat passed into my own" (NHV I/6v).
In the parish of La Capelle Stéfanie Adèle Vandelet is a member of the Joseph Society, a bourgeois charitable institution, from it's outset and continues for more than 30 years.
The only disappointment Leo Dehon experienced from his mother, concerned his vocational decision. Leo Dehon was aware of the resistence of his father, but counted very much on his mother's support: "My mother on whom I counted so much to help me, left me completely abandoned. She was pious and wanted me to be pious, too, but the priesthood frightened her. It seemed to her, as if I wouldn't belong any longer to the family, as if I would be lost to her" (NHV IV/101).
The last years of her life Stéfanie Adèle Vandelet is almost paralysed. Cyrille Petit, a study friend of Fr. Dehon and parish priest of Buironfosse, visits her regularly on behalf of his friend. In his letters he reports how Dehon's mother prepares herself for dying: "At each visit I dare to say that our Lord perfects and purifies this wonderful soul for heaven. How abundantly is the stream of grace of the divine Heart!" (letter from the 5.1.1881). Shortly before her death she commits herself again to her son by pronouncing the Victim vow. On 19 March 1883 Stéfanie Adèle Vandelet dies at the age of 69.