resigned as prime minister and retired from politics. Chrétien places highly in rankings of Canadian prime ministers. At age , Chrétien is the oldest living former Canadian prime minister. Early life, family, and education Chrétien was born on January 11, 1934, in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, as the 18th of 19 children (10 of whom did not survive infancy), of Marie (née Boisvert, died 1954) and Wellie Chrétien (died 1980). The working-class Chrétien family was poor, and Chrétien had to wear clothing that had been worn by his siblings as his parents were too indigent to buy new clothing for him. Chrétien's parents wanted their children to escape a working-class life in Shawinigan by attending a classical college, which was the only way one could attend university in Quebec at the time. Chrétien's father made him read the dictionary as a young boy. Chrétien's older brother Maurice won a scholarship at the insurance company he was working for, which allowed him to attend medical school, and with the profits from his medical practice, was able to assist his younger siblings to attend the classical colleges. Wellie Chrétien was a staunch Liberal who once got to shake hands as a young man with his hero, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The local parish priest, Father Auger, a supporter of the Union Nationale who hated all Liberals as "ungodly," spread malicious rumours about the Liberal Chrétien family, saying he would never let a teenage girl go on a date unchaperoned with any of the Chrétien boys, which caused the young Jean Chrétien to have troubled relations with the Catholic church. During World War II, the Canadian nationalist Wellie Chrétien had attracted much public disapproval by being a staunch supporter of the war effort, and especially by being one of the few French-Canadians in Shawinigan willing to publicly support sending the conscripts (known as "Zombies") to fight overseas. Under the 1940 National Resources Mobilization Act, the federal government could conscript Canadians only for the defence of Canada, and until late 1944, only volunteers went to fight overseas. In 1940s Quebec, where many French-Canadians were opposed to Canada fighting in the war, and especially to sending the "Zombies" overseas, this made Wellie Chrétien and his family outcasts. Furthermore, during the Grande Noirceur ("Great Darkness") when Quebec society was dominated by the corrupt Union Nationale patronage machine, the Chrétien family were excluded because of Wellie Chrétien's support for