Marcel Chaput was born in Hull, Quebec on October 14, 1918. His mother was Lucia Nantel, and his father, Narcisse Chaput, was a proofreader at Her Majesty's Printer in Ottawa. He was the youngest child and sole boy in a family of seven children. He did not know three of his sisters, who died at a young age. The three sisters he knew were Rolande, Gabrielle and Madeleine. He was ten years old when his sister Rolande, 16, died of sepsis.