Gilberte Voisin

Personal

Vocation

Family

Belgian child who saw a vision of the Virgin, along with her siblings Albert and Fernande on 11/29/1932. At about 6 PM that evening, Albert and Fernande Voisin, ages 11 and 14 respectively were told to run to the school to get accompany their 12-year old sister Gilberte home. The boys invited their friends Andree and Gilberte Degeimbre, ages 13 and 9 respectively to go with them to the school. When they arrived at the door of the school, Albert turned around. Above the railroad bridge nearby was a vision of a beautiful woman whom he knew was The Blessed Virgin. The other children could all see her as well but they were frightened. The next day they went back to the same spot and had the same visitation. The following day, December 1, 1932, she reappeared over the same railroad bridge, then disappeared for a short time before emerging again near a holly bush only to disappear again and reappear under a hawthorn branch. There the children saw her about 30 times from then until January 3, 1933. Each time she came, she gave the children her instructions and wishes--that they should be good, pray a lot, have a chapel built for pilgrims. She was named "Our Lady of Beauraing" and a bishop of the Catholic Church gave the church's endorsement of the authenticity of the apparitions on July 2, 1949. After she grew up, Gilberte Voisin taught nursery school for a while. In 1945, she married a policeman, Amédée Pierret, who died on the job on April 22, 1953. They had two small children whom she raised. On January 3, 2003, she was visiting Beauraing. That evening, the 70th anniversary of the last apparition, she died in an accident, reportedly at the same hour as the vision. She was 83 years old.