WINNIPEG - One hundred years after the birth of celebrated novelist Gabrielle Roy at 375 Deschambault St. in southeast Winnipeg, the 2 1/2-storey wood-frame house has been named a national historic site.

Roy lived there for 28 years, until 1937. The building, located in a quiet residential neighbourhood in St. Boniface, is now a museum dedicated to the author and her work.

Born March 22, 1909, the youngest of 11 children, Roy became one of Canada's most widely read and studied novelists. She described and idealized her family home in several of her works, particularly "Street of Riches."

Shelley Glover, MP for St. Boniface, unveiled a plaque earlier this month commemorating Roy as a person of "national significance" and the home as a national historic site.

"Gabrielle Roy was a master story-teller and literary pioneer whose work achieved both critical and popular acclaim," said Glover.

A second Historic Sites and Monuments Board plaque commemorating Roy will be installed in Montreal's Saint-Henri district. Inspired by that working-class neighbourhood, Roy's first novel "The Tin Flute" presented "a harshly realistic picture" of the lives of many urban French-Canadians, Parks Canada said in a news release.

The novel earned Roy a Governor General's Literary Award and the French Prix Femina.

Roy died in 1983 in Quebec City.