When Jesuits Were Giants: Louis-Marie Ruellan, SJ, 1846-1885 and His Contemporaries

This biography chronicles the life of Louis-Marie Ruellan, a romantic, pampered, bourgeois Breton turned Jesuit priest and selfless servant of God. Entering the Jesuits in 1870 – just in time to serve with them in the Franco-Prussian War – he was, soon after, exiled with them to England in 1880. Finally, he came to the United States in 1883 to work among the Salish Indians of the Pacific Northwest. Among other things, Ruellan ended up as a founder of Gonzaga University. Ruellan's untimely – and mysterious – death in 1885 has had a lasting effect on the history of the Catholic Church in the Northwest, Alaska, and California.

The author briefly depicts the careers of Ruellan's fellow novices and French confrères, as well as American Jesuits he met on his way to the Oregon Territory. Through Ruellan's extensive correspondence, the author introduces the reader to miners lured to the Northwest by gold, as well as to the Indians, homesteaders, railroad labourers, farmers, and the men and women of the American frontier.

"Dramatic events from Brittany to Spokane, an extraordinary young Jesuit, a heroic missionary enterprise . . . as this well-told story shows."

–Fr. John Padberg, S.J., Director, Institute of Jesuit Sources