When war broke out between Germany and France in 1870, a 24-year-old Irish school teacher left his homeland to fight for the French. For him, everything about life was an adventure. The ex-teacher started as a news writer. But the brutality of combat aroused his compassion, and he volunteered to carry stretchers, lugging the wounded from both sides to medics. During one conflict, as a shell bounced toward a wounded man on a stretcher, Patrick Hough (1846-1925) grabbed it in his left hand, expecting to toss it aside. It exploded, taking his hand and lower arm, shattering his jaw, bursting his eardrums, exposing his windpipe and splitting his thigh open.
After healing, Hough returned to Ireland. With his father’s help, he scraped together $100 for a one-way trip to America, where he became one of the millions of Irish Catholics fleeing Ireland between 1840 and 1900. So many immigrated that anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, and anti-immigration sentiment boiled over here.
Hough appeared first in New Westminster, B.C., where, with the help of the locals, he built a parochial schoolhouse of logs. Then, living frugally, he saved enough to build a two-story brick school with the community’s help.
Because he was frustrated in Canada and loved America’s history — the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, even the abolitionist instigator John Brown — he left for Seattle. He looked for work but failed because of his half-empty sleeve and the lack of a teaching certificate. Of course, “no Irish need apply” sentiments didn’t help.
