Juliette Seguin Levesque

Juliette Seguin Levesque 1922 - 2019
SAUQUOIT - Juliette Seguin Levesque, 97, an extraordinary artist, writer, religious educator and family matriarch who used her talents to inspire others and deepen their faith, died at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica on Sunday, September 22, 2019, after a relatively brief illness.
Married to the late Charles Levesque for 59 years, Mrs. Levesque was a Vermont native, born to the late Georges and Laurence (Bourgie) Seguin on January 5, 1922. When she was 3, her parents relocated to Montreal, where she and her sister enrolled in Catholic schools and schools in drama and elocution. It led her to roles in French radio including soap opera, commercials and poetry reading. Then after studying at the Beaux Arts School and Marie-Anne College, she traveled, all alone, to New York City to continue learning at the Grand Central School of Art and the National Academy of Art.
In 1946, she met and married Charles, an Army Air Force veteran who had participated in the Normandy invasion. Together they went on to raise seven children in Brooklyn, Queens and Sayville, Long Island. At St. Pascal Baylon Church in Queens she was both a parish secretary and member of the Queens Catholic Interracial Council, working to help French-speaking Haitians needing support.
Her own deep Catholic faith continued to grow, reflected in the large body of art which she produced at home and in classes she taught. Some of her dramatic works include her large scale mural of Michelangelo's Creation, which she painted in Sayville, on her dining room wall. Other notable works include a painting inspired by the Holocaust, that now hangs on display at the Holocaust Museum at Suffolk Community College, a portrait of Catholic priest/philosopher, Teillard de Chardin and a work entitled, Rachel, illustrating a woman's struggle to protect her unborn child from an abortion.
Mrs. Levesque was a substitute teacher in Sayville Public Schools and was a member of Women Sharing Art. She was also a member of the prestigious Pastel Society of America, a select group of fewer than 100 top artists from the United States and Canada. A Eucharistic Minister and teacher of religion at St. Lawrence Church, in Sayville, she authored a work fiercely defending the Catholic Doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
To friends, family and acquaintances alike, young and old, clergy and non-clergy, Mrs. Levesque was often seen as a source of practical and spiritual wisdom.
Predeceased by a daughter, Christine Kevorkian, formerly of Las Vegas, she is survived by four daughters and two sons, Rose-Marie Dujardin and husband, Richard, of Providence, RI, Charles-Laurent Levesque and wife, Edith, of Mesa, Arizona, Vincent Levesque and his wife, Ulrike, of Zurich, Switzerland, Michelle Tegan and husband, John, of Palmerton, PA, Elizabeth Taylor and husband, Richard, of Sauquoit and Shirley, NY and Jeannine Henck and her husband, James, of Sauquoit. In recent years she was honored to become the adoptive mother to the Rev. Seth Awo Doku, a priest from Ghana, now serving as a priest in Wantagh. Mrs. Levesque is also survived by 24 grandchildren; and 34 great-grandchildren. She has one surviving brother, Robert Seguin, of Canada; and numerous beloved brothers and sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by four siblings, Camillienne Hazel and Georges, Lionel and Pierre Seguin.
Mrs. Levesque chose to donate her body to science. A Memorial Mass in her honor will be held on Thursday, September 26 at 10 a.m. at St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church, 3372 Oneida St., Chadwicks, NY. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at a future date at St. Lawrence Church in Sayville, NY, with interment next to her husband at Calverton National Cemetery, Wading River, NY.