In the summer of 1847, Elisabeth Bruyere, the twenty-nine year old superior of the Bytown Sisters of Charity, took extraordinary action at great personal risk to care for the Irish Famine refugees streeing into Bytown. In the Midst of a humanitarian crisis and typhus epidemic, she set up a temporary hospital to care for the sick. Her actions saved countless lives. Imperial and Colonial government authorities viewed the Irish famine victims with contempt; Bruyere treated them with compassion. her work laid the foundation for the the public health care system in Canada's capital. Her extraordinary legacy deserves to be better know 175 years after these events.