Evangeline was an Acadian girl; who was separated from her lover, Gabriel during the deportation of 1755. She is madly in love with him and desperately wants to find him. The poem follows Evangeline on her search across America in search for Gabriel. Evangeline spends years on this search, and on countless time they are actually are right in the same place. However, Evangeline never notices that Gabriel was right in her face. At the end of the poem, Evangeline is living in Philadelphia working as a Sister of Mercy; which is a religious group that helps the poor and sick. She is a nurse and finds Gabriel on a cot dying because of a dangerous epidemic that was going around. Gabriel dies in Evangeline arms which was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Evangeline.