Free thinker.
Born near Moncton, New Brunswick on 3 April 1881, to Acadian parents, he worked for the Canadian National Railway for eleven years while educating himself to be a public lecturer on free thinking. He toured North America for 14 years before settling in Winnipeg in 1926 at the invitation of the One Big Union. He was the author of Fundamentals of Free Thought (1923).
He married Bertha Lisette Becker (c1882-1977) at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and they subsequently had a daughter, Madeleine Gauvin before moving to Canada in 1927.
He lectured weekly from 1927 to 1940 at various theatres around Winnipeg. After he retired, he worked at MacDonald Aircraft Limited during the Second World War.
He died at his Winnipeg home, 943 Dorchester Avenue, on 23 September 1978. His papers are in the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections and his extensive library of esoteric thought is there as well.
“I write what I see,” Winnipeg Tribune, 1 July 1946, page 11.
Obituary [Bertha Lisette Gauvin], Winnipeg Free Press, 15 July 1977, page 20.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 26 September 1978, page 134.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, December 1999, 288 pages.
We thank Oliver Bernuetz (Legislative Library of Manitoba) for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 4 September 2025
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