Saint Zélie Martin

Zélie Guérin was born in 1831 in Gandelain, France, and, after being refused entry to a religious order in her youth, built a successful lace-making business in Alençon, a skill she taught herself and later ran as the primary income for her family. She married Louis Martin in 1858, and the couple ran their household with deep, disciplined faith alongside her demanding business. She bore nine children, losing four in infancy, and wrote extensively in surviving letters about her daily joys and struggles as a mother, businesswoman, and believer, providing a uniquely detailed record of 19th-century family life and faith. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in her forties and died in 1877, when her daughter Thérèse — the future Saint Thérèse of Lisieux — was only four. She and Louis were canonized together in 2015.