LIVING HISTORY
St. Lawrence River, made his way to Chicago after his first
wife died in childbirth. There he became a surfman at the
Jackson Park Life-Saving Station. While in Chicago he married
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Mary Augusta Wilson, who had immigrated to the
United States from Ireland. In September 1903, Ludger was
appointed keeper of Bethel Creek House of Refuge. By then,
the Gignacs had three children. His salary was to be $600 per
year and he had to pay the family’s travel expenses to Florida.
Two more children, Arthur, and Wilson Price’s mother,
Delphine, were born at Bethel Creek House of Refuge.
In her old age Mary Gignac lived with Delphine’s family
and told her grandson stories of collecting rain water to
drink, storms, and above all, loneliness. For a young Irish
woman far from civilization, it was a hard life. Wilson was
certain his grandfather saw things differently. “He had been
a woodsman and a waterman from youth. He hunted, fished,
and taught his sons the ways of a natural and unspoiled environment.
He loved the ocean and its challenge.”
CALLS TO RETURN HOME
Price shared a series of letters written by Ludger’s brother,
Monsignor Joseph Gignac, a professor of Theology at Laval
University in Quebec. He wanted his brother to “remove” his
family from the wilderness and return to Canada. One letter
began “It is not a little job to leave the keepership of Bethel
House; it seems ten times easier to select a president for the
United States than a keeper for taking your place.”
Monsignor Gignac continued in his letter to his brother:
“I hope you are not to loose courage but you will fight
strongly until you get your liberty. It is a sad revelation for
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY WILSON LEONARD PRICE
Keeper Ludger Gignac’s son Joseph Gignac sits on the porch of the Bethel
Creek House of Refuge around 1904.
me, and probably for you, that you were prisoner on this
awful island.”
Price’s article about his grandparents ends: “Finally, at age
fifty, worried about his family and pressured by relatives in
Quebec to return home, he left his position as Keeper. He
accepted a minor post in the legislature in Quebec City and
worked almost to his death in 1937 at the age of 80 years. My
grandfather was an adventurer, a woodsman, a free man. As
he walked the halls of our parliament buildings and breathed
the dusty air of politicians and lawyers, he no doubt remembered
the open beach and the endless glades. I am sure that
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PHOTOS PROVIDED BY WILSON LEONARD PRICE
Three of the Gignac children take a boat ride with their father, Ludger, who served as keeper of the Bethel Creek House of Refuge from 1903 until 1907.
Inset, Keeper Ludger Gignac, his wife, Mary, who is holding Arthur, Joseph Ludger, Jr. and Philoméne pose at Bethel Creek House of Refuge in 1906.