Who is Constance Beauclaire from Mrs. Mike the Story of Katherine Mary Flannigan and what is their importance?

Constance Beauclaire is the only other white woman besides Katherine in Grouard. While Katherine does not particularly like her reference to this fact when she first meets Constance, Katherine understands, at the end of the novel, why she states the words. Constance means that she and Katherine chose to live in this country but the others were born there.

Constance is considered the mother of sorrows by Katherine because she has had four families with nine children and most of them died. It is Constance who teaches Katherine that the big tragedies are not what matter in life; it is the smaller things in daily life that matter.

Constance asks Katherine and Mike to take the twins that were born to her daughter Madeleine before she dies in the flu epidemic.