A little fishing village named Cancale in Brittany, France was Jeanne's birth place.  The date of her birth was 25th October, 1792.  She had seven siblings and her father was lost at sea when she was a small child.  As a teenager, she worked as a kitchen maid for a wealthy family In 1816 she refused an offer of marriage because, to use her own words, God wants me for Himself.

           In 1817 she left home to work in the hospital in Saint Servan.  In 1818, unable to find a religious order which appealed to her, Jeanne joined an Association for lay women founded by St John Eudes known as the Third Order of the Admirable Mother.  Her life from then on was one of silence, prayer and practical charity towards the poor.

          It was the winter of 1839 when she found Anne Chauvin.  This elderly, infirm and destitute woman was carried in Jeanne's strong arms and placed in Jeanne's bed.  From then on Jeanne Jugan belonged to God and to the elderly of the whole world; the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor was born.  This elderly woman was followed by another and another expansion was rapid and by 1850 there were over 100 Little Sisters