Aurore was born into and raised in a Roman Catholic family. She was the second of five children of farmer Télesphore Gagnon and his first wife Marie-Anne Caron. Her parents married in September 1906. They lived in Fortierville, Quebec. It was a small village on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. The villiage was a southwest of Quebec. The Gagnons' first child, Marie-Jeanne, was born in August 1907. Aurore's birth was soon followed by that of Lucina then Georges in 1910 and Joseph in 1915. 