Initially, Tisseyre's education was in the Couvent du Sacré-Cœur de Sault-aux Récollets and at the Institut pédagogique de la Congrégation Notre-Dame. At the age of 12 she was hospitalized for one year for treatment for tuberculosis in the sanatorium in Saranac, Upstate New York. She then joined the McGill University in 1936 where she was the first French Canadian to be given admission to study history and philosophy. Here in 1937, she met Jacques de Brabant, director of Esterel resort in the Laurentien and married him. Following her marriage she discontinued her college studies. But this marriage did not last long as her husband left her for another woman during World War II; she divorced him in 1946. She was left with a child to manage on her own when she auditioned for employment with Radio Canada.
