Joséphine Renée Vinçon

Joséphine Renée Vinçon was born on the 2^nd of May 1832 into a fairly large middle-class family in Pramollo, Val Chisone. The sixth child of Waldensian pastor Giacomo Vinçon and Marie Susanne Marguerite Duclieu, she soon learned to speak French, both at home and at church. This facilitated her later travels in Europe.

Her mother acted as her governess during the early years of her education but, in 1845, she was admitted to the Girls' High School in Torre Pellice, which her sister Marie had attended before her.

In 1946 she was invited by her aunt and uncle to study at a finishing school for girls in Switzerland. After three years, in January 1949, she left for London where she worked as a governess. She didn't stay there long due to problems with her employer and, in 1850, she returned to the Waldensian Valleys.

The following year, she taught at the girls' school in Pinerolo founded by her maternal aunt Fanny Duclieu together with her Swiss friend Madame Briot, but the school soon ran into difficulties due to poor attendance by Protestant families.

The autumn of 1854 saw her set off on another important departure: thanks to her family's connections, she travelled to Russia as governess to the youngest daughter of General Karl Egorovia von Manderštern, governor of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg. She received a very warm welcome here from the family she worked for and even met Tsar Nicholas I and the future Alexander II.

During her stay, Renée wrote several letters to her parents and sister, in which she described her approach to the city, the beauty of the landscape, her new friendships, her feelings, worries and homesickness.

She was comforted by the thought of the closeness of her brother who had left his wife in Odessa to travel around the country.

She returned to Italy in the early 1860s at the end of her employment contract.  She married Matteo Turin, the owner of a knitwear factory in Turin who was widowed and had four children, on the 18^th of October 1863, in San Giovanni in the Waldesian Valleys.

Matteo died in 1869 and Josephine was left alone to take care of their seven children.

Story collected in collaboration with Davide Rosso and the Centro Culturale Fondazione Valdese.