Arthur A. LeMay, a priest of the Diocese of Rochester, served as an assistant pastor at St. Mary's Church, Auburn, from 1914 to 1917, and again for a brief period in February 1921. He was born in Watertown on 7 December 1887, the son of Napoleon LeMay, a native of Montreal, and Anna McGoldrick, a native of Ireland. He received his early education at St. Mary's School, Rochester, and Ovid High School, Ovid; he completed studies in philosophy at St. Andrew's Seminary, Rochester (1908) and theological studies at St. Bernard's Seminary, Rochester (1914). On 6 June 1914, he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Rochester by Bishop Thomas F. Hickey.
Shortly after the entry of the United States into the "European War," Fr. LeMay enlisted as a chaplain in the United States Army and received a first lieutenant's commission on 6 February 1918. He was assigned to the 148th Machine Gun Battalion and sailed for France one week after receiving his commission. While en route to the battlefields of World War I, he was injured and was hospitalized in the U.S. He returned to France with the 64th Infantry Regiment of the Seventh Army Division, and took part in the battles of St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In the latter battle, he was disabled by gas and hospitalizzed. He was the recipient of the Silver Star for gallantry in action and the Purple Heart in recognition of his injuries. In his book The Greater Love (1920), George T. McCarthy, another chaplain in the Seventh Division, made numerous references to Fr. LeMay, attesting to the high esteem in which he was held by the chaplains and soldiers of the Seventh Division.
On 19 April 1919, Fr. LeMay was discharged from the service at the military hospital at Oswego. He spent three years in army hospitals due to the injuries he received in France. On 12 July 1922, he was appointed Catholic chaplain to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Bath, and in the same year was selected as chaplain to the New York Department of the American Legion, in which capacity he served in 1923 and 1924. In addition, he was chaplain to the Disabled American Veterans for seventeen years. After serving for thirty-one years as its Catholic chaplain, Fr. LeMay retired from the Veterans' Administration Hospital at Bath on 30 June 1953. he died on 30 March 1955, and was interred in his family's plot in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Rochester.
