TESTIMONIES: Her friends and neighbours

Now we will follow her during her youth in Quebec, before and after her stay in New York. From 16 to 24 is a long time in which to get to know Dina.  Her friends tell us:

 

I was fifteen years old and Dina was about 20. She offered to help me with my school homework. I went to her house and showed her my literary compositions and also asked her to help me solve my problems in algebra.  Thanks to her precise advice and for her innate ability to communicate what she knew, I soon became very good at mathematics. She has always fascinated me, above all, for her young and joyful conversation. She knew how to laugh and tease us. I admired her and found her very good-looking, without understanding exactly that her very attractive personality was but the expression of an intense interior life. She was very gentle and her artistic soul was revealed when she played brilliantly the works of the greatest musicians.

Dina never complained when she was asked to play something and did so immediately. She wanted to please everyone, but was never proud of her musical talent.  Her success never went to her head.

After leaving our boarding school we spoke mainly about music. At that time she had great ambitions, even glimpsing a European Prize on the horizon. Now I think that this pretended ambition was only to hide the fact that her only objective in life was the great love of God that overwhelmed her.

She was very charitable towards the poor. She would work day and night to help those who asked for something, even making it with her own hands. She seemed to understand what misery is and knew how to cure wounds. She had a good word for everyone, her spirit of service was constant and without limits.

A neighbour says: Dina was a very distinguished young woman, generous and without caprices. She asked for nothing from her parents and was content with everything. We were poor, and I had eleven children. When my husband asked her to be the godmother to one of my daughters, she felt content and honoured. Every month she wrote to us from New York, in spite of much work that she had.

Dina was very attentive to the needs of others. A companion tells us: in a musical sketch I had the role of a beggar; I did not have a dark coat and did not know what to do. Spontaneously Dina lent me hers, having removed the buttons, something which made it look more miserable.

Someone who knew Dina very well states that she had to struggle to overcome her strong temperament, but that her efforts and the resulting progress, was continuous. The setbacks and serious disappointments that came her way did not upset her serenity or remove the smile that made her so attractive.