SALISBURY – Gov. Maura Healy joined other state and local officials last week to honor the 101-year-old Robert “Boots” Chouinard for a lifetime of service to country and community by naming the Salisbury Beach Lifeguard Command Station after him.
Chouinard, who was the head lifeguard on the beach for 15 years, led the large crowd that came to honor him in a Hip, Hip Hooray cheer. An overwhelmed Chouinard said, “I never expected my life would end up this way, to get some recognition for some of the things I did in my life, and I’m so happy about it.”
Local officials, headed by the Salisbury SelectBoard, have been lobbying the legislative delegation to honor Chouinard for years.
“We finally got it done,” Healy told the crowd. “We think about the greatest generation, and there is nobody who embodies that more than Boots Chouinard.”
Born in Newburyport, Chouinard was given his colorful nickname by a local grocer when he came in his store to pick up his mother’s order wearing shoes that were much too big for his feet.
During World War II, he served in the Army, storming the beaches at Normandy. Later, he and his unit took a swim in a French river to get clean. He said one of his fellow soldiers did not know how to swim and began to sink. A natural lifeguard, Chouinard saved him.
“I felt good about saving that soldier,” he told the crowd.
He became the head lifeguard at the beach and taught swimming lessons when he returned home. In college at Boston College, he played football. Later he became a physical education teacher and coached various teams at Salem High School.
A natural storyteller, Chouinard wrote newspaper columns. ♦
