Hector Chevigny – Missoula Born Writer
Missoula-Born Writer, Hector Chevigny, Continues Career in East
Hector Chevigny, former resident of Missoula, who made a successful career for himself in the literary and radio worlds, has cornered more fame in the last few months as a figure in writing circles.
Mr. Chevigny, who has been living in New York City for the last year, writes the script for Morton Downey, whose “Songs by Morton Downey” program is heard Mondays at 12:15 p. m.
It was in November, 1943, that the young man lost his sight, but he overcame the handicap almost immediately with the aid of his “seeing eye” dog, “Wizard,” and was able to return to the writing world. He has contributed importantly in the building of morale of injured war veterans.
An author of note, having written two best-selling books, one of which won the Commonwealth prize, he recently completed a short story, “Greener Fields,” which has Montana as its locale. It appears in the current magazine. Another of his short stories is due to appear within the next few months.
Because of the outstanding work that he has done in the last few years, Mr. Chevigny has been chosen for the “Interesting People” section of the “American Magazine,” and will be featured there in the October issue.
Besides his active work in radio and in the short story field, Chevigny has also written many scripts this last year for United States Treasury shows.
The writer, of French-Canadian ancestry, went to school at Gonzaga university in Spokane, Wash., and was a classmate of Bing Crosby. He represented the Western radio writers in the Author’s League council for some time. During his career he has written more than 5,000 broadcasts, and directed 500 of them. He is considered an expert in the history of Russian occupation of Alaska and the Aleutians. It was his knowledge on this subject that won his book, “Lord of Alaska” the Commonwealth award.
Chevigny, who lived in Missoula throughout his childhood, was a brilliant pupil at St. Joseph’s school and was placed in an upper grade there despite long absence from his classes because of the illness that was to result in impaired eyesight for him.
He continued his education later at Gonzaga university, Spokane, where he was entered by his mother on the advice of a priest, who said that inasmuch as the youth had a brilliant mind and poor vision, he must make the most of his splendid mentality. He was graduated from Gonzaga with honors and an outstanding ability as a linguist, which was to be the key to his success in the writing world. Disappointed when an application for a teaching position did not pan out, he took what he expected to be a temporary position in Seattle as an interpreter and announcer in foreign language broadcasts. When vignettes of Northwest history became a feature of the programs with which he was associated, he prepared these and found the interest in history that brought to light much information not known commonly, concerning Puget Sound history. He became so absorbed in his work that his research led to the “Lord of Alaska,” which was termed by critics “a vital historical novel, whose scholarly treatment of a long-dead past bears so closely on the present and future that reading it becomes almost a necessity as a factor in supplying background for understanding 1942’s war news.” The story was the story of Baranov and the entire Russian adventure in Alaska. Time magazine termed the book “a fascinating and valuable opus on a little-known, but at present vitally important subject, the domain of Alaska, which came into the possession of the United States through purchase.”
Mrs. Angeline Chevigny, mother of Mr. Chevigny, who had been a semi-invalid for a number of years, died here a few months ago. She had visited with her son in 1938 when he and his wife spent some time in Butte with a sister.
Other writings by the Missoula-born writer, are “The Lost Empire,” which also had its background in Russian history, an historical novel, and many motion picture scripts. In California, he was script writer for such players as Edward G. Robinson, Charles Boyer and others.
Mrs. Chevigny, who came into Mr. Chevigny’s life when he took up his work in Seattle, and who was an employe of the same radio station, has been his constant companion and assistant.
The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on July 29, 1945.
https://www.newspapers.com/image/349171693
Hector Chevigny was born in Missoula in 1904. He married Claire R. Graves in Seattle in 1930. They were parents of two children, Paul and Toni. Hector was the author of several historical novels and short stories. He also wrote “My Eyes Have a Cold Nose,” published in 1946, which Kirkus Review called a “compelling account of blindness.” Reviewer John T. Frederick said that the title to this book was “unfortunate,” and that the book is an “absorbing and appealing personal narrative which is excellent reading for its own sake.”
Hector’s mother, Angelina (Menard) Chevigny was profiled in another article on the oldmissoula website linked below:
A short biography and an interesting quote from Hector Chevigny appear at the New York Public Library Archives website linked below:
http://archives.nypl.org/the/22470#overview
American novelist and radio and television dramatist.
Chevigny is pronounced SHEV-nee.
Shortly after arriving in New York in 1943, he lost his sight, suddenly, through bilateral detachment of the retinas. He lived in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park with a wife, two children and a Seeing Eye dog.
My parents, born in French Canada, settled in western Montana in its rawer territorial days, my one sister and I being born late in their lives. Father was a carpenter and contractor. Missoula was our home town but we also lived in Butte and much of my childhood I passed near Frenchtown, in a rugged mountain valley homesteaded by relatives in the 1870s. That now I write television plays, having known in my own life a period when even rural electrification seemed a wild dream, appears to me less cause for wonder, however, than the fact it seems to give no cause for wonder at all. I am constrained to wonder how I became a writer only because others have done so. Perhaps the family propensity for wandering had something to do with it. Wandering can take place over the cultural map too. More probably it was the influence of the Carnegie library system, the effect of which on communities like Missoula social historians overlook. I was often ill, was forever immersed in a sea of print. They call what I had nowadays allergic. My people called it le riffe and some tried dog-grease on it.
Several of Hectors’ books are currently featured on Amazon.