New Orleans-Santa Fe District, 2013 Christian Brothers, pioneer

New Orleans-Santa Fe District, 2013
Christian Brothers, pioneer educators in the South and Southwest
since 1851 who died in February
1. 1898: Brother Dacian (Olivier Boisvert) died in
Amawalk, New York, at age 67. He was born in St. Charles,
Canada, on August 11, 1831, and entered the novitiate in
Montreal in 1855 at age 24. He served as cook in the
Community of New Orleans, Louisiana, 1858-1861, and in
Detroit, Michigan, 1861-1883. He spent the rest of his life as
the purchaser for the community in Amawalk.
1. 1912: Brother Reneus Bernward
(Thomas Kelly) died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at age 53.
He was born in Canada in 1859 and entered the novitiate in
Montreal. After many years of service his health failed, and he
was sent to the more agreeable climate of Santa Fe to recover,
but to no avail.
1. 1972: Brother Antonio Maria (Narciso
A. Lozano) died in Mexico City at age 70. He was born in
Zacatecas, Mexico, on October 29, 1901, and was taught by the
brothers in the Liceo Católico in that city. He entered the junior
novitiate in Mexico City in 1914. A little more than half way
through his first year there, all foreign priests and religious were
forced to leave the country by the Carranza revolution in
August. When the brothers decided to transfer the junior
novitiate to Cuba, Narciso, not quite 13 years old, expressed
the desire to go with them, and his parents gave their consent.
He made the novitiate there in 1916-1917 and completed the
required teacher training there. By then the brothers were
returning to some of the schools they had started in Mexico, and
Brother Antonio Maria was assigned to one of them. He taught
in the junior novitiate in Mexico City several years and in 1934
was appointed director of the novitiate. It was transferred to
Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1935 due to frequent inspections and
harassment by Mexican officials. When peace was assured, the
novitiate was moved back to Mexico City. Br. Antonio Maria
was appointed visitor of the District of Antilles/Mexico in 1943.
He was elected assistant to the superior general for the districts
of Latin American at the brothers’ international general chapter
in Rome in 1946 and was reelected to a second ten-year term in
1956. He returned to his home district in 1966 and spent the
rest of his life in vocation ministry.
2. 1900: Mary A. Evans, B.F.S.C., died in New
Orleans, Louisiana at age 65. She was born in Ireland, but there
is no record of the date she moved to New Orleans, of a
marriage, or means of livelihood. She helped the brothers many
years in the nineteenth century during yellow fever epidemics
and financial difficulties in that city. For this she was given
letters of benefaction.
2. 1985: Brother Anthony Clement
(Antonio Archuleta) died of a heart malfunction at age 79
in Metairie, Louisiana, after a short illness. He was born in Las
Vegas, New Mexico, on December 20, 1905, and was a student
of the brothers at La Salle Institute in that city. He entered the
junior novitiate at Sacred Heart Training College in the same
city in 1919 and received the brother’s garb in the novitiate on
the same campus on October 22, 1921. After two years of study
in the scholasticate there, he taught at St. Paul’s College (high
school) in Covington, Louisiana, 1923-1930, St. Michael’s
College (high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1930-1936, St.
Peter’s College (high school) in
New Iberia, Louisiana, 1936-1940,
Kirwin High School in Galveston,
Texas, 1944-1947, and St. Nicholas
School in Bernalillo, New Mexico,
1947-1949. He then served 15 years
as an administrator: nine as
community subdirector and teacher
at Cathedral High School in El Paso,
Texas, 1949-1958, and six as
principal of Academy of the
Immaculate Conception boys’
section in Opelousas, Louisiana,
1958-1964. After a year of teaching at Hanson Memorial High
School in Franklin, Louisiana, he was assigned to Rummel
High School in Metairie in 1965 and spent the remaining 20
years of his life there as a teacher, community subdirector five
years, and a retiree. Funeral Mass was celebrated in the
Rummel High School gymnasium on February 5 at 8:30 a.m.
and his remains were taken to Lafayette for burial in the
brothers’ cemetery at De La Salle the same day.
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4. 1920: Brother Cletus Bernward (John Mullen)
died in Glencoe, Missouri, at age 78. He was born in Errill,
Leinster, Ireland, on December 10, 1841, and entered the
novitiate in St. Louis, Missouri, at age 30 in 1871. In 1872 he
was assigned to the Community of New Orleans, where he
taught at St. Joseph’s Academy and at St. Mary’s Academy
until 1874. He was then sent to St. Louis for six years, to
Chicago in 1880 for three, and to Feehanville in 1883 as
purchaser for the orphanage there. In March 1906 he was
assigned to St. Nicholas school in Bernalillo, New Mexico,
where he stayed until 1919, when sickness and old age forced
him to retire to Glencoe.
4. 1945: Brother Angel Lucien “Lucian”
(Louis E. Tisseyre) died of cardiac arrest at age 70 in Santa
Fe, New Mexico. He was born on November 17, 1875, at
Fanjeaux in the French department of Aude. When he was ten
years old, his father died, and Louis had to help his mother
support and raise his two younger siblings. Louis found work as
an assistant to a stone mason restoring a nearby monastery. His
life took a turn for the better when he heard a Christian Brother
visiting the village give an enthusiastic talk about his vocation.
Louis went to see the brother right away and got all the
information he needed to decide to be one. Despite her
dependence on Louis’s income, his mother generously approved
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his choice, and Louis entered the junior novitiate at Buzenval
near Paris on September 17, 1890. He received the brother’s
robe in the novitiate in Paris on
May 4, 1892, obtained an
elementary teaching license after a
year of study, and in 1894 was
assigned to the community at St.
Nicolas in Issy, where he stayed
until 1902, except for military
service in 1897-1898. He started
teaching in the lower classes, but
as his skill improved, he was
moved up to the older students and
finally to an assignment as
professor in the scholasticate in
1902. The anti-religious laws of
1904 forced the closure of the scholasticate immediately, and
Br. Lucien was sent to teach in the diocesan minor seminary in
Versailles. When that was shut down in January 1907 he signed
up for an intensive course in Spanish and was sent to Mexico in
time for the beginning of the new school year in January 1908
in Instituto Científico in Morelia, a large boarding school, and
was appointed dormitory supervisor of the younger boys in
1910. He was remembered years later as a skilled teacher who
was also a musician and a gardener. When the Carranza
revolution forced all foreign priests and religious out of the
country in August 1914, his community sailed from Vera Cruz
to Cuba. He was among some 65 of the 175 French brothers in
Mexico who accepted the offer to go to the United States. He
was sent to the District of Baltimore, which assigned him to the
scholasticate in Ammendale, Maryland, to learn English and
then to Eddington, where he provided health services, chapel
needs, and music lessons. In 1916 he was sent to teach at La
Salle Institute in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and in 1921 to St.
Michael’s College (high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
where he stayed 12 years. He was business manager and also
helped with the school band and choir. He was appointed to
these two jobs full-time in 1927. He was sent to Mullen Home
for Boys in Fort Logan, Colorado, in 1933, where he continued
his work in music. During his leisure hours he landscaped the
grounds with trees, shrubs, and flowers, and erected a grotto of
Our Lady of Lourdes. In 1937 he was sent to De La Salle in
Lafayette, Louisiana, where he duplicated the work he had done
in Fort Logan. In 1941 he was sent to operate the district’s
ranch in Bernalillo, New Mexico. He over-exerted himself
physically in the demanding work and suffered cardiac arrest
toward the end of January 1945. The doctor sent him to St.
Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe, where Brother Lucien died. He
was buried in the brothers’ plot in Rosario Cemetery in Santa
Fe. He was a quiet, humble man who used his many talents to
serve others. His life was one of work and of prayer. The
brothers said that when he didn’t have a tool in his hands, he
had the rosary. Brother Antel Arsène “Arsenius” (Aloys Josef
Macher) wrote of him in his memoirs: “The play (he staged at
Mullen Home for Boys in Fort Logan, Colorado) was a
complete success. The audience could not believe that boys
were capable of such a perfect performance. Financially the
play was a flop, but the boys learned that there was joy and
pleasure in art. On many occasions the success of plays and
entertainments in schools was due to his good taste and serious
preparation—he wanted perfection. He was a good dessert chef
too. The menu on feast days usually included delicacies that he
alone knew how to prepare. To please the brothers was his
delight. But above all, Brother Lucien was an exemplary
religious, a Christian Brother to the core.”
4. 1950: Brother Clément Basile (Gabriel
Bazil) died suddenly and peacefully at age 76 in Santa Fe,
New Mexico, a few hours after an apparent heart attack. He was
born on August 29, 1873, in the
hamlet of La Poterie in the French
department of Ille-et-Vilaine.
Following an older uncle’s example,
he entered the junior novitiate in
Nantes in 1886 and received the
brother’s garb in the novitiate on the
same campus on September 29, 1888.
He studied in the scholasticate at the
same location, 1889-1890, received
the elementary teaching license in
1890, and taught successively in
Pouancé and Saint Hélier de Rennes.
He was sent to the boarding school,
La Madeleine, in Nantes in 1893 and
remained 13 years, the last two as subdirector and supervisor of
teachers. He was well respected by the brothers, students, and
parents for a well-run school. When the school was closed in
1906 as a result of the anti-religious laws of 1904 Basile was
sent to the brothers’ international motherhouse in Lembecq,
Belgium, for three months of special studies and then to
Clermont-Ferrand to join his confrères from Nantes taking an
intensive course in Spanish. Most of the community, including
the director and subdirector, were sent to Querétaro, Mexico, in
July 1907. They spent the rest of the year preparing for the
opening in January1908 of a school very much like the one
they left in Nantes. Basile again garnered the praises of his
director and the school constituency. In 1913 he was appointed
director of a school in Toluca, near Mexico City, where he did
equally well. When the Carranza revolution forced all foreign
priests and religious out of the country in August 1914, Basile’s
community escaped by ship from Vera Cruz to Cuba. He was
among some 65 of the 175 French brothers then in Mexico who
accepted the offer to go to the United States, and his group was
assigned to the District of New York. They were sent to the
scholasticate in Pocantico Hills, New York, to learn English,
quite a challenge for 40-year-old Br. Basile. His optimism and
cheerfulness kept up the spirits of his fellow-refugees. After a
few weeks he was sent to Albany, New York, and then to
Providence, Rhode Island, where he taught French and design.
In 1916 he was called to join Brother Charlemagne de Jésus,
his former director in Nantes and Querétaro, in taking over the
operation of St. Michael’s College (high school) in Santa Fe,
New Mexico. The local population gave a hesitant reception to
the totally foreign faculty replacing the American brothers they
respected and loved, but the two brothers showed the leadership
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skills that soon won the locals’ admiration and respect. In 1919
Basile was overjoyed at the opportunity to return to Mexico,
only to have his plans changed at the last minute by a call to be
the founding director of Cathedral High School in Lafayette,
Louisiana, where French was still commonly spoken. He got the
school off to a good start. In 1922 he was sent to teach business
classes at St. Paul’s College (high school) in Covington,
Louisiana, one year, and then back to Lafayette to teach in the
junior novitiate at De La Salle. To the great satisfaction of the
local clergy and parents, he was reappointed director of
Cathedral in 1925 and stayed six years. He definitely left his
mark and was highly praised at anniversary celebrations
decades later. He taught at Landry Memorial High School in
Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1931-1934, and in the junior novitiate
at Sacred Heart Training College in Las Vegas, New Mexico,
1934-1936. He was sent back to Lafayette in 1936 as director
general of De La Salle, back to Las Vegas in 1939 as a teacher
in the scholasticate, and finally back to St. Michael’s in Santa
Fe in 1939 as treasurer.
and the distressed. In helping them she forgot her own
sufferings and soon used her own assets to fund the sisters’
projects. She spent the rest of her life raising money for the
poor and was the best-known and most successful beggar in the
city for decades. She boldly started project after project for the
needy, regardless of their race, color, creed, or religious
affiliation. At her funeral Mass in her parish church, St.
Patrick’s, the pall bearers were prominent citizens from all
walks of life. Two years later the mayor of the city presided at
the unveiling of a beautiful and touching monument to her on
a triangular plot in front of the New Orleans Female Orphan
Asylum, which she had saved from closing. It bore the simple
inscription “Margaret,” the only name by which she was ever
known in the city.
A full account of her life is given in chapter 7 of St.
Patrick’s of New Orleans, 1833-1958, by Roger Baudier et al.,
available in the Archdiocese of New Orleans archives.
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Mexico, less than a month short of age 73. He was born in the
village of Niederzissen in the
Prussian department of Koblenz,
on March 2, 1833, the last of four
boys followed by a girl. He was
trained as a teacher and migrated
with his family to Detroit,
Michigan, in 1851. His father
died in December that year.
Joseph’s older brother Michael
entered the Christian Brothers’
novitiate in Montreal, Canada,
and received the religious garb
with the name “Brother Ammian” on May 6, 1852. Joseph and
another older brother, Peter (Brother Botthian), followed him
into the novitiate on November 11 that year and received the
religious garb there on December 24. A third brother, John J.
(Brother Dosas), followed them soon and began the novitiate on
September 7, 1853. Brother Botulph taught in St. Joseph’s
School in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 1853-1858, St. Patrick’s
Academy in Rochester, New York, 1858-1862, and the next
year at St. Mary’s in Detroit, where he taught German. He was
subdirector of the St. Joseph’s Academy/Calvert Hall
community in Baltimore, Maryland, and the head teacher at St.
Alphonsus School, 1863-1865. In 1865 he was sent to the St.
Michael’s community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to teach
the upper class in St. Peter’s School. Two years later he was
appointed subdirector of the St. Mary’s community and taught
the upper class at La Salle College. In 1868 he was sent to De
La Salle Institute in New York as community subdirector and
supervisor of all the parish schools it served. Meanwhile, St.
Michael’s College (high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was
on the brink of closure. The brothers there were discouraged
and wanted to withdraw. In both 1869 and 1870 the brothers
who held the dual positions of visitor of the district and director
of the college traveled to New York with a petition to withdraw.
Brother Patrick, visitor of the District of New York, acting on
8. 1882: Margaret Gaffney Haughery, B.F.S.C.,
died in New Orleans, Louisiana, at age 69. She was known in
the city as the “mother of orphans” for taking in children whose
parents had died in yellow fever epidemics in 1853 and later.
She also cared for the brothers, who gave her letters of
benefaction in 1882. She was born Margaret Gaffney in
Killashandra, County Cavan, Ireland, in 1813, the fifth of six
children in a family of poor farmers. Her father migrated to
Baltimore, Maryland, in 1818 with his wife and the three
youngest children. In 1822, at age 9, Margaret lost both of her
parents in an epidemic that ravaged the city. Margaret was
fortunate in coming into contact with a Mrs. Richards whose
husband died at about the same time as the Gaffneys. They had
met on the boat crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and Mrs. Richards
decided to take Margaret in and raise her. Margaret somehow
developed an attraction for New Orleans and wanted to move
there. In Mrs. Richards’ circle of Catholic friends Margaret met
Charles Haughery, who courted her and asked her to marry him.
Their pastor approved, and the two were married in the
Baltimore cathedral on October 10, 1835. Soon afterwards,
Charles’s doctor recommended a change of climate for his
health. To Margaret’s delight, Charles chose New Orleans, and
they arrived there on November 20, 1835. However, after a few
months Charles’s health got worse. The doctors recommended
a sea voyage, but Charles delayed because Margaret was
pregnant. The baby was very frail, and Charles’s health was
getting worse. They finally agreed that he should take the trip,
and he decided to go to Ireland. Soon after he left the baby died.
A few weeks later Margaret got news that her husband had died
shortly after arriving in Ireland.
Then 23, Margaret again felt completely alone, but she
managed to continue her work to support herself. Her greatest
consolation came from meeting the Sisters of Charity who had
come from Emmitsburg, Maryland, a few years earlier. Her own
life experience led her to sympathize with the poor, the sick,
9. 1906: Brother Botulph (Joseph Peter
Schneider) died after a short illness in Santa Fe, New
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behalf of the assistant to the superior general for North
America, decided the brothers should stay. He chose Botulph as
the man who could turn things around and sent him to Santa Fe
to “make it go.” In a short time the brothers’ attitude changed,
enrollment increased, and candidates entered the novitiate.
Botulph also raised enough money to put up the two most
modern buildings in the Territory and to buy the property from
the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. He gained such respect with the
people and government officials that he was appointed to the
Territorial Board of Education when it was created by the
territorial legislature in 1891 and served until his death. He was
superintendent of public schools in Santa Fe County in 1892.
Two years after his death grateful alumni erected a statue of
him in front of his first building.
9. 1937: Dr. R. Ducrest Voorhies, M.D.,
A.F.S.C., died in Lafayette, Louisiana. He was affiliated in
1935 for professional services to the brothers in Lafayette.
9. 1955: Hon. J. G. St. Julien, A.F.S.C., died
in Lafayette, Louisiana. He was affiliated in 1942 for his many
services to the district.
9. 2004: Mrs. Shirley
Siner, A.F.S.C., died in Lafayette,
Louisiana, after a long battle with cancer.
She was affiliated in 1994 for her many
years of service as head cook at De La
Salle, a position for which she was well
qualified by a successful career as a
professional chef.
9. 2007: Brother Bertrand Raphael (John
Robert Bonin) died in a nursing home in Lafayette,
Louisiana, at age 75 after an extended illness. He was born in
New Iberia, Louisiana, on April 13, 1931, and was a student of
the brothers at St. Peter’s College (high school) in that city. He
entered the junior novitiate at De La Salle in Lafayette in 1944
and received the brother’s garb in the novitiate there on
August 14, 1948. He began his college studies in the
scholasticate at St. Michael’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
1949-1951, taught at Hanson Memorial High School in
Franklin, Louisiana, 1951-1953, and returned to Santa Fe to
complete his degree. He taught at Cathedral High School in
Lafayette, Louisiana, 1954-1955, Mater Dolorosa parochial
school in New Orleans, Louisiana, 1955-1957, and St. Paul’s
High School in Covington, Louisiana, 1957-1959. He was an
exchange teacher in a brothers’ school in Canada, 1960-1961,
spent a short time teaching at Landry Memorial High School in
Lake Charles, Louisiana, and spent the rest of the school year
resting at De La Salle in Lafayette. He taught at Christian
Brothers School in New Orleans, 1961-1969. Feeling a desire
for the monastic life, he obtained a leave of absence from the
brothers and was accepted as a candidate in a Benedictine
monastery. In 1971 he received a dispensation from his vows as
a Christian Brother and became a Trappist monk at Gethsemane
Abbey in Kentucky. Four years later he left the Trappists, was
accepted by the Christian Brothers again, and again assigned to
Christian Brothers School. He taught there the rest of his life,
except for a year at Mullen High School in Denver, Colorado,
1976-1977. Due to poor health he retired to St. Paul’s in
Covington in 1997. The care he needed forced his transfer to a
nursing home in Lafayette, where he died.
10. 1923: Brother Ildephonsus Paulian (Edmond
A. Melançon) died at age 68 in Memphis, Tennessee, after
a fall on the ice. He was born in Napoleonville, Louisiana, on
April 12, 1854, and was attracted by the example of the brothers
teaching in New Orleans. He entered the novitiate at
Carondelet, Missouri, in 1881 at age 27 and spent most of his
life as a supervisor of resident students at Christian Brothers
College in St. Louis, Missouri, and Christian Brothers College
in Memphis, Tennessee. In the winter of 1923 in Memphis he
slipped on the ice, lost consciousness, was rushed to the
hospital, and died later that day after regaining consciousness
long enough to receive the sacrament of the dying.
10. 2006: Brother Andrew Norbert
(William E. Russell) died at age 84 in Lafayette,
Louisiana, in a local nursing home
after an extended illness. He was
born in New Orleans, Louisiana,
on September 4, 1921, and entered
the junior novitiate at De La Salle
in Lafayette in 1934. He received
the brother’s garb in the novitiate
there on August 14, 1938. He
studied in the scholasticate at
Sacred Heart Training College in
Las Vegas, New Mexico, 19391941, taught at St. Michael’s
College (high school) in Santa Fe,
New Mexico, one year, and
returned to Las Vegas to finish his degree. He taught at Landry
Memorial High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1943-1945,
Hanson Memorial High School in Franklin, Louisiana, three
semesters, and again at St. Michael’s in Santa Fe, 1969-1971.
He spent the next 20 years as business manager of Rummel
High School in Metairie, Louisiana, and moved to the same job
at De La Salle High School in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1991.
He retired in the community there, but the care he needed
required his transfer to a nursing home in Lafayette in 2002.
10. 2009: Brother Lester Malcolm (Lester
A. Lewis) died suddenly in the
community at St. Michael’s High
School in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at age
71. He was born in Ester, Louisiana, on
September 25, 1937, and lost his father
in early childhood. His mother married
Ross McCreary on June 29, 1942, in
Yuma, Arizona, and moved with him to
Port Arthur, Texas, where Lester grew
up. After serving in the United States
Navy, he entered the novitiate at De La
Salle in Lafayette, Louisiana, on
September 9, 1961, just short of age 24. He received the
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brother’s garb in Lafayette on January 25, 1962, and a year later
was sent to study in the scholasticate at St. Michael’s College
in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to get his college degree. He taught
at St. Paul’s High School in Covington, Louisiana, one year and
spent the rest of his life in non-teaching support services: at De
La Salle in Lafayette, 1971-1972, at St. Michael’s High School
in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1972-1976, at De La Salle High
School in New Orleans, Louisiana, 1976-1978 and 1985-1989,
at Mullen High School in Denver, Colorado, and Marian
Christian High School in Houston, Texas, each one year as
school bookkeeper, at Cathedral High School in El Paso, Texas,
1989-2001, as school cafeteria manager while community
director two years, at Mullen in Denver again, 2001-2003, and
finally at St. Michael’s in Santa Fe again, this time as curator of
San Miguel chapel, until his sudden death. He was a quiet,
smiling person, willing to try any job to which he was assigned.
11. 1950: Brother Bertrand August (Paul
Scheberle) died in New Iberia, Louisiana, at age 20 of
drowning in a boating accident. He was born in Sterling,
Colorado, in 1929, one of ten
children. When he expressed the
desire in 1943 to follow his eldest
brother into the Christian Brothers,
his mother, by then a widow with her
other sons serving in World War II,
could have used him at home.
However, she generously allowed
him to enter the junior novitiate at
Sacred Heart Training College in Las
Vegas, New Mexico. He was sent to
finish the junior novitiate at De La
Salle in Lafayette and received the
brother’s garb in the novitiate there
on August 14, 1946. He spent 1947-1949 studying in the
scholasticate at the newly-opened four-year degree program at
St. Michael’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was sent to
St. Peter’s College (high school) New Iberia in 1949 for his
year of student teaching and was enjoying a weekend outing
with his confrères when the fatal accident happened on the
Bayou Têche behind the school and the brothers’ residence.
in 1983.
11. 1985: Brother Anthony Gabriel
(Francis C. de Baca) died suddenly at age 79 in Lafayette,
Louisiana, after a massive stroke. He was born on June 4, 1905,
in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and was taught by the brothers at
La Salle Institute in that city. He entered the junior novitiate at
Sacred Heart Training College when it opened there in 1919.
He was sent to the novitiate in Mixcoac, near Mexico City,
where he received the brother’s garb on March 18, 1921. He
then spent a year studying in the scholasticate at Sacred Heart
in Las Vegas. After a short stay at St. Paul’s College (high
school) in Covington, Louisiana, in 1922, he was assigned to
teach at St. Peter’s College (high school) in New Iberia,
Louisiana, and stayed 12 years. In 1934 he was sent to teach at
Mullen Home for Boys in Fort Logan,
Colorado, and in December 1935 to
Cathedral High School in El Paso,
Texas. He taught at St. Michael’s
College (high school) in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, from September 1937 until
March 1940, when he was sent back to
New Iberia and in August to Cathedral
High School in Lafayette, Louisiana,
where he taught until 1942. He taught at Kirwin High School in
Galveston, Texas, 1942-1944, and St. Nicholas school in
Bernalillo, New Mexico, 1944-1947. He was on the founding
faculty of the St. Michael’s College four-year degree program
in Santa Fe when it opened in 1947, and taught there five years.
He was at the brothers’ ranch in Bernalillo, 1952-1958, and then
returned to the classroom at De La Salle High School in New
Orleans, Louisiana, 1958-1960, Cathedral High School in El
Paso, Texas, 1960-1963, and La Salle High School in San
Antonio, Texas, one year. He spent the rest of 1964 and all of
1965 resting at De La Salle in Lafayette. After filling a
temporary teaching position at Cathedral High School in
Lafayette in January 1966, he taught at Cathedral in El Paso
again, 1966-1970, and spent the rest of his active life at St.
Michael’s High School in Santa Fe as curator of San Miguel
chapel, the oldest Catholic church in the United States still used
for religious services over 400 years after its founding in 1610.
Failing health forced his retirement to De La Salle in Lafayette.
12. 1937: Brother Heraclian (Edmund Carney)
died of a heart attack at age 81 in Glencoe, Missouri. He was
born on November 18, 1856, in Liverpool, England, to Irish
parents. Edmund migrated to the United States at age 15,
attended school in New Orleans, and worked in his brother’s
contracting business until he was 25. He visited relatives in
Chillicothe, Missouri, in 1881, and in July that year he entered
the brothers’ novitiate in Carondelet. He received the brother’s
garb there on August 22, 1881. He was sent to New Orleans in
1883 and taught at St. Mary’s Academy one year and at St.
Joseph’s Commercial Academy four. He was sent to St. Louis
in 1888 and back to his job at St. Joseph’s in New Orleans in
1891, where he was appointed director in 1893. He was
reassigned to St. Louis in 1895 and spent the rest of his long life
teaching and rendering other services in the St. Louis District.
12. 1971: Brother Dionysius van “Denis of”
Jesus (Alphonse de Schepper) died at age 88 in PontSaint-Esprit, France. He was elected vicar
general of the Christian Brothers at their
international general chapter in Rome in
1946 and automatically became superior
general when the elected superior, Brother
Athanase-Emile, died in 1952. He was
born in Belgium in 1882, entered the
novitiate there in l898, and taught in the
brothers’ schools. He was arrested by the
German military during World War I for
supporting the Belgian resistance and was
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sentenced to death. After getting appeals from the King of
Spain and the Pope, the Germans relented and commuted the
sentence to hard labor for life. He was elected assistant to the
superior general at the brothers’ international general chapter in
Lembecq, Belgium, in 1932 and served until he was elected
vicar general in 1946. He did not seek reelection at the general
chapter in 1956 and went to the foreign missions instead. He
served until ill health forced him to retire. He went to the
brothers’ retirement home, Notre Dame de la Blanche, at PointSt.-Esprit, in France, where he died.
13. 1888: Most Rev. Jean-Baptiste Lamy, D.D.,
B.F.S.C., founding bishop and then archbishop of Santa Fe,
New Mexico, died there at he age of 76. He was responsible for
bringing the brothers to Santa Fe in 1859 and gave strong
financial support to St.
Michael’s College and the other
schools in New Mexico
Territory. He was born on
October 11, 1811, in the village
of Lempdes in the department
of Puy-de-Dôme in France.
After ordination to the
priesthood in Clermont, he
acted on an appeal by Very
Rev. John J. Purcell, archbishop
of Cincinnati, to volunteer for
service in the United States.
The bishops of the United
States meeting at the Third Council of Baltimore in 1848 asked
the Vatican to create a new diocese for the vast territory
acquired by the United States during the Mexican American
War. They suggested Father Lamy to the Congregation for the
Propagation of the Faith as the first bishop. A vicariate
apostolic was created in 1851, and Lamy was ordained a bishop
in the cathedral in Cincinnati by Archbishop Purcell. Instead of
going to Santa Fe in a caravan across the plains, Lamy went by
way of New Orleans to visit a sister of his in the Sisters of
Charity hospital and to place a niece with the Ursuline Sisters
in the city. His steamship from New Orleans was shipwrecked
as it approached the Texas coast at Port Lavaca, and he lost all
but one of several trunks. He hired a cart and driver to cross
Texas but had an accident that caused a severe ankle fracture
near San Antonio. It took eight months to heal, and he reached
Santa Fe nine months after leaving New Orleans. With the help
of the bishop who ordained him a priest in Clermont he got the
Christian Brothers to send him four experienced teachers to
start San MiguelCollege.
13. 1940: BrotherAimare Auguste
(Jacques-Auguste Abrial) died in Athis-Mons, France,
at age 64. He was born on August 20, 1875, in Cussac in the
French department of Haute-Loire. Despite being taught by the
Brothers of the Sacred Heart in his village, he followed several
other local boys into the Christian Brothers’ junior novitiate in
Buzenval, near Paris, in 1888. He received the brother’s garb at
the novitiate in Paris on October 5, 1891. He was kept there as
a catechist, 1892-1895, and then
sent to teach in the junior novitiate
in Paris for one year. During his
mandatory military service, 18961899, he quickly won the respect
and admiration of his comrades and
his commanders and was awarded
an office job. He made friends with
whom he kept in contact the rest of
his life. Back in community, he
received a succession of short
assignments until 1906, when his
school was closed by the antireligious laws of 1904. In the fall he took an intensive course in
Spanish with a group of his confrères and left for Mexico on
January 24, 1907. He was assigned to Colegio de San Juan
Bautista de la Salle in Puebla and taught there until the end of
the school year in December 1910. In 1911 he taught in
Instituto del Sagrado Corazón in Morelia and was subdirector.
In 1913 he was sent to the Liceo Católico in Querétaro and
stayed until the end of July 1914, when the Carranza
revolutionaries captured the city and deported the brothers in a
railroad cattle car to the Texas border. From there they made
their way by train to New Orleans, Louisiana, and then by ship
to Cuba. There he was among the brothers who accepted the
opportunity to go to the United States and was in the group sent
to the New York District’s scholasticate in Pocantico Hills to
learn English. Nearly 40 years old, he struggled with this
language so different from his own, but he learned it well
enough to teach in the juniorate at Pocantico Hills a year later.
In 1916 he was sent to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to be in the
community of French brothers taking over St. Michael’s
College (high school) from the American brothers. He stayed 14
years. He was the dean of discipline and supervisor of
classroom teaching. He was appointed community subdirector
in 1917 and acting principal while the principal was away in the
fall semester in 1923. He was community director and school
principal, 1924-1930. At the district spiritual retreat in August
1930 the assistant to the superior general presented him to the
brothers as their visitor. They gave him a standing ovation. The
senior brothers of the district elected him to represent the
district at the brothers’ international general chapter in
Lembecq, Belgium, in 1934. While there, he suffered his third
attack of paralysis since 1930. This one severely incapacitated
him and deprived him of the ability to speak. He resigned the
visitorship and spent over a year in the infirmary at Lembecq.
He was then sent to the brothers’ retirement home in AthisMons, south of Paris. He died a peaceful death after receiving
the sacraments of the dying. Brother Antel Arsène “Arsenius”
(Aloys Josef Macher) wrote in his memoirs about Auguste as
an administrator that “. . . as subdirector and supervisor of
discipline, he had absolute control of order and studies. The
students appreciated his kindness and thoroughness; they
respected and trusted him. Only God knows how many boys’
lives he straightened out and how many owe him their good
Christian life and success in professions.” After Auguste’s
death he wrote: “To the last day of his life his interest in the
7
district never diminished. Every year he looked forward with
pathetic eagerness to the arrival of the brothers going to
Lembecq for a year of special programs. They never failed to
stop at Athis to bring him news of the people and places he
loved so dearly.”
13. 1993: Brother Alphonsus Isidore
(Nicholas Becker) died of a stroke at age 69 in Santa Fe,
New Mexico. He was born on November 8, 1923, on the family
farm near Fleming, Colorado, the last of
five children. Before he reached the age
of 13 two brothers and a sister had
already entered religious orders, one of
them a Christian Brother. Nicholas
entered the junior novitiate at Sacred
Heart Training College in La Vegas,
New Mexico, in 1937 and received the
brother’s garb in the novitiate at De La
Salle in Lafayette, Louisiana, on August
14, 1940. He returned to Las Vegas in
1941 for two years of college in the
scholasticate, did his student teaching at St. Michael’s College
(high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and completed his
degree at Sacred Heart in 1946. He taught at Landry Memorial
High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1946-1949, St.
Nicholas school in Bernalillo, New Mexico, 1949-1950, St.
Paul’s College (high school) in Covington, Louisiana, 19501958, St. Michael’s High in Santa Fe, 1958-1961, Cathedral
High School in El Paso, Texas, 1961-1963, Cathedral High
School in Lafayette, 1963-1965, again at St. Michael’s, 19651969, and at Mullen High School in Denver, Colorado, 19691976. He taught in the District of San Francisco three years, one
in Napa, California, and two in Milwaukie, Oregon. In 1979 he
returned to Santa Fe and spent the rest of his life there, teaching
at St. Michael’s six years, at the College of Santa Fe four, and
living in retirement at St. Michael’s the last three. He was a
quiet, unassuming man of few words, sensitive and artistically
talented, especially in painting and leather work. Wherever he
lived or taught, he left art work. He enjoyed teaching art in
school and at the brothers’ summer camp for boys in the Pecos
Valley, near Santa Fe. His confrères and his students alike were
impressed by his kindness and his dedication to prayer and
religious practices.
13. 2000: Brother Basil Raphael (René
Ferdinand Clerc) died at age 64 of heart failure in
Lafayette, Louisiana, after a long battle with diabetes. He was
born in Triumph, Louisiana, on May 27,
1936, and was enrolled as a resident
student at St. Paul’s High School in
Covington, Louisiana, when he was 14.
He felt attracted to the brothers’ life and
after graduation in 1954 entered the
novitiate at De La Salle in Lafayette,
Louisiana. He received the brother’s garb
there on December 7, 1954, and a year
later was sent to study in the scholasticate
at St. Michael’s College in Santa Fe, New
Mexico. He did his student teaching at St. Michel’s High
School in Santa Fe and completed his degree in 1959. He taught
at De La Salle High School in New Orleans, Louisiana, 19591961 and 1967-1969, Cathedral High School in Lafayette,
Louisiana, 1961-1964, and La Salle High School in San
Antonio, Texas, 1964-1967. He returned to San Antonio as
community director and principal of Antonian High School,
1969-1971, and to Lafayette as a teacher at Cathedral-Carmel
High School in August 1971. He spent the winter and spring of
1972 in the personal renewal program at Sangre de Cristo
Center in Chupadero, near Santa Fe, and in August was
assigned to Paul’s High School in Covington as supervisor of
senior resident students. In January 1978 he was sent, for the
third time, to teach at De La Salle in New Orleans, and in
January 1982 to the brothers’ international motherhouse in
Rome for a year of special studies. In 1983 he returned to De La
Salle in New Orleans as a counselor and resided in the district’s
nearby house of studies for candidates to the brothers. He was
a counselor at Mullen High School in Denver, Colorado, 19881992, and at Cathedral High School in El Paso, Texas, 19921996. There his long struggle with obesity and diabetes came to
a head. He had a heart attack that required triple by-pass
surgery. After a year of rest and recuperation at De La Salle in
Lafayette, he taught at Christian Brothers School in New
Orleans, Louisiana, 1997-1998, and at Rummel High School in
Metairie, Louisiana, 1998-1999. He then joined the retirement
community at De La Salle in Lafayette. Brother Jeffrey
Calligan, his community confrère of many years, writes of him:
“Like all of us, Brother René was a unique mixture of gifts and
limitations. He could be hard on others, but never as hard as he
was on himself. He was gifted with a personality that ran the
gamut of ups and downs. He was an athlete and a chef. He
loved the gentleness of music and literature and was a fierce
competitor on the athletic field and in the stands. As I look back
on the years we shared, I recognize a man of good heart. He
loved his work and he loved the young men he dealt with. He
loved being a brother.”
14. 1937: Brother Eustachius Lewis (George J.
Crosby) died at age 75 in Glencoe, Missouri. He was born on
April 21, 1861, in Mitchell, Wisconsin, and entered the
novitiate in Carondelet, Missouri. He was sent to teach at St.
Michael’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in September
1905 and was appointed director in February 1906 after Brother
Botulph (director since 1870) died. He was sent to St. Paul,
Minnesota, in 1908 to be community director and principal at
Cretin High School.
14. 1973: Mrs. Velma Marie
Sheehy Beck, A.F.S.C., died in Denver,
Colorado. She and her husband were
affiliated in 1964 for their great generosity in
funding the construction of a new student
chapel at St. Paul’s High School in
Covington, Louisiana, during the directorship
of their son Brother Abel Francis (Ernest V.
Beck).
8
14. 1977: Msgr. Joseph Pyzikiewicz,
A.F.S.C. (commonly called by his first name), died in New
Orleans, Louisiana, at age 83. He was born in Poland in 1895,
migrated to the United States in 1913, and was ordained a priest
for the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1921. He served as
assistant pastor at Mater Dolorosa parish until 1925, pastor of
St. Paul’s parish in Bayou Goula 1925-1929, founding pastor of
Little Flower of Jesus parish in New Orleans 1929-1933, and
pastor of Mater Dolorosa parish from 1933 until his retirement.
He operated his parochial school free of charge for 19 years,
until rising costs forced him to start charging tuition. He was
given letters of affiliation in 1975 in recognition of his efforts
to bring the brothers back to New Orleans in 1949.
14. 1999: Mrs. Frank “Lala” Martin,
A.F.S.C., died in Lafayette, Louisiana. She was affiliated for
her many years of volunteer work at De La Salle, commonly
called Magnolia, in caring for the brothers and in seeing to it
that the altar linens and chapel furnishings were clean and in
good condition.
15. 1866: Brother Claudius Peter (Michael
Rogan) died suddenly after a brief illness at age 17 in New
Orleans, Louisiana. He was born on August 18, 1848, in County
Sligo, Ireland, and entered the novitiate in New York in 1864.
That September he was sent to Jefferson City, Louisiana, to
teach at St. Vincent’s Academy and the following year to the
Community of New Orleans to teach at St. Mary’s Academy.
He became sick and died suddenly.
15. 1904: Brother Hilarius James (James
Dolan) died in Glencoe, Missouri, at age 63. He was born on
May 10, 1840, in Marbank, Ulster, Ireland, and migrated to the
United States in his early twenties. He served in the United
States Army during the War Between the States. At age 30 he
decided to join the Christian Brothers and entered the novitiate
in Carondelet, Missouri, on March l5, 1870. He was sent to
Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1883 to be subdirector of St.
Michael’s College (high school). He was assigned to St. Louis,
Missouri, in 1885.
15. 1947: Brother Luke Joseph (Frederick
Kenrick) died in Memphis, Tennessee, at age 70. He was
born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 31, 1876, and
attended St. Joseph’s Commercial Academy in that city.
Inspired by the brothers who taught him, he entered the junior
novitiate at La Salle Institute in Glencoe, Missouri, in 1891 and
received the brother’s garb in the novitiate there in 1893. He
served in several high schools in the St. Louis District and spent
35 years at Christian Brothers College (later named University)
in Memphis, including 12 as president. He was never assigned
to his home town.
15. 1947: Brother Lewis Philip (Louis
Anton Reif) died at age 83 in Joliet, Illinois. He was born on
August 15, 1884, in his parents’ farmhouse near Whitelaw in
Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, one of nine children of a
German immigrant couple who were staunchly Catholic. There
is no record of his early childhood or his education but there is
a record that at age 24 in 1908 he was living in Antigo “four
blocks from the railroad station” and that he had attended
Antigo Business College. Much later in life he wrote that his
residence there was a frequently relocated railroad repair crew
dormitory box car and that he worked as a cook in the attached
dining car. There is no record of how he heard about the
Christian Brothers, but in September 1908 he wrote a letter to
the director of their La Salle Institute (a high school) in
Chicago, Illinois, asking for admission as a brother, because “I
have always wanted to be a religious.” The pastor of St. John’s
Church in Antigo referred to him as “one of the best young men
of my congregation, very pious, and a regular communicant.”
Louis entered the novitiate at La Salle Institute in Glencoe,
Missouri, in October 1908 at the age of 24 and received the
brother’s garb on Dec. 7, 1908. He was sent to New Mexico in
1909 and stayed seven years, the first four at St. Michael’s
College (high school), in Santa Fe, where he taught an
elementary class with satisfactory results. In August 1913 he
was sent to St. Nicholas school in Bernalillo some 50 miles
south. There he experienced total failure. In desperation he
wrote to the Brother Visitor, “I cannot do anything with these
boys here. ... English they do not understand, Spanish I do not.
... It will kill me to remain here!” At the end of October he was
sent back to Santa Fe, where he had three more successful
years. In the summer of 1916 the St. Louis District turned its
three schools in New Mexico over to the French brothers from
the District of Mexico, and Br. Philip returned to the Midwest,
where he had a long and fruitful teaching career in many
schools.
15. 2007: Brother Alphonsus August
(Eugene Biederman) died in Lafayette, Louisiana, at age
82 after a lengthy battle with diabetes.
He was born on November 8, 1924, in
Longmont, Colorado, and entered the
junior novitiate at Sacred Heart Training
College in Las Vegas, New Mexico. He
received the brother’s garb in the
novitiate at De La Salle in Lafayette,
Louisiana, on August 14, 1941. He
studied in the scholasticate at Sacred
Heart in Las Vegas, 1942-1944, did his
student teaching at Landry Memorial
High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana,
and returned to the scholasticate to
finish his college degree in 1946. He
taught at St. Paul’s High School in
Covington, Louisiana, 1946-1948, St. Michael’s High School
in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1948-1951, St. Peter’s College (high
school) in New Iberia, Louisiana, 1951-1952, and again at St.
Paul’s in Covington, 1951-1955. After a year at Kirwin High
School in Galveston, Texas, he was sent back to New Iberia to
teach in the newly-consolidated Catholic High School, 19561963, and was assistant principal, 1963-1965. He was sent back
to Kirwin in Galveston for one year, and was community
subdirector and teacher at Hanson Memorial High School in
Franklin, Louisiana, one year. He then taught at De La Salle
9
High School in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1967 until
January 1974. After spending the winter and spring of 1974 in
the personal renewal program at the brothers’ Sangre de Cristo
Center in Chupadero, New Mexico, he taught at Mullen High
School in Denver, Colorado, 1975-1984, and was community
director there one year. His last teaching assignment was at
Christian Brothers Academy in New Orleans, a few blocks from
Christian Brothers School, 1984-1994. Failing health forced
him to join the retirement community at De La Salle in
Lafayette in 1994, and he remained there until his death. He
was known as an incessant worker and spent many summers as
a counselor at the brothers’ camp for boys in the Pecos Valley,
near Santa Fe. He also spent several summers helping his
brothers on the family ranch in Colorado.
16. 1971: Brother Claudius Gabriel (Vernon
Mabile) died in Lafayette,
Louisiana, of lung cancer at age
39. He was born in La Place,
Louisiana, on February 12,
1932, and entered the junior
novitiate at De La Salle in
Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1945.
He received the brother’s garb
in the novitiate on August 14,
1949. He studied in the
scholasticate at St. Michael’s
College in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, 1950-1952, taught at
St. Michael’s High School in
Santa Fe, 1952-1954, and
returned to the scholasticate to
complete his college degree. He
taught at Hanson Memorial High School in Franklin, Louisiana,
in the spring semester of 1955, at Cathedral High School in
Lafayette, 1955-1958, at Mater Dolorosa parochial school in
New Orleans, Louisiana, 1958-1961, at Landry Memorial High
School in Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1961-1962, and at St. Paul’s
High School in Covington, Louisiana, from 1962 until the end
of the fall semester in 1964. He spent the spring semester of
1965 in the personal renewal program at Sangre de Cristo
Center in Chupadero, New Mexico, and volunteered to work for
the poor in the Philippine Islands. He was assigned, instead, to
La Salle High School in San Antonio, Texas, to work in a
government program for underprivileged children one year. In
1966 he was assigned to the District of Philippines and taught
at La Salle Academy in Lipa four years. In 1970, he
volunteered to teach in the remote, impoverished village of
Iligan. There he began having severe pains but refused to take
a trip for medical care, because “My boys need me.” Finally, in
November, the community director sent him on a purchasing
trip to Manila, where Brother Gabriel was stricken with such
extreme pain that the doctor had him hospitalized. The
diagnosis was terminal cancer. After treatment, Gabriel was
able to go back to Iligan and continue teaching. In February he
agreed to a check-up by doctors in the United States and was
sent to De La Salle in Lafayette. He died there four days after
his 39th birthday. He was known for his cheerfulness, his ready
smile, his dedication to his students, and his resignation in all
circumstances of life. Numerous testimonial letters poured in
from confrères, former teachers, superiors, and students. From
students: “Thank you for giving me a chance to attain higher
education. ... I miss you so much since you’ve been gone;
loneliness has filled my heart. I still remember when I studied
under you, you were the only teacher who ever gave a chance
to those who failed, letting them work overtime. ... Get well,
Brother! We Filipinos need you very much.”
16. 1974: Brother Osmund Paul (Pierre
Charbonnier) died peacefully at age 89 in Lafayette,
Louisiana, after a long illness. He was born on January 18,
1885, in the village of Cubizolle in
the French department of HauteLoire and entered the junior
novitiate at Vals, near Le Puy, in
1899. He received the brother’s
garb in a group of 17 in the
novitiate in Le Puy on July 2,
1901, and a year later was sent to
the scholasticate in Paris. He
received his elementary teaching
license in 1903 and was sent back
to Haute Loire to teach in the
village of Monistrol-sur-Loire. In
1906 he was drafted into the
French army and stationed at a
base near Le Puy. When he was discharged in 1908, most of the
brothers’ schools in France had already been closed on account
of the anti-religious laws of 1904. Brother Paul chose to go to
the foreign missions instead of living as a secular at home, and
he enrolled in the intensive course in Spanish given at
Clermont-Ferrand. He was in a group that left for Mexico in
February 1909 and he was sent to Querétaro, where he
obviously made a great impression. He made his final vows
there in December 1913 and 50 years later his former students
invited him back to celebrate his golden anniversary. When the
Carranza revolution in 1914 forced all foreign priests and
religious to flee the country, Brother Paul was among those
assigned to the District of New York, which sent them to the
scholasticate in Pocantico Hills to learn English. He made his
first efforts to use English in the brothers’ schools in
Providence, Rhode Island, and Syracuse, New York. In 1918 he
was called to be in the founding community taking over St.
Paul’s College (high school) in Covington, Louisiana. He was
sent to St. Peter’s College (high school) in New Iberia in 1919,
La Salle Institute in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1920, back to
New Iberia in 1922 as director, back to Covington in 1925 as
subdirector. He served as the district’s vocation director, 19301931, and then resumed his position at St. Paul’s. He was the
director of St. Paul’s, 1935-1941, and of Landry Memorial High
School in Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1941-1944. He was the
community prodirector at St. Michael’s College (high school)
in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1944-1945 and director of Mullen
Home for Boys in Fort Logan, Colorado, 1945-1951. Then 66,
he retired from school work but served as postmaster at St.
10
Michael’s College in Santa Fe, 1951-1955. He spent two years
at Academy of the Immaculate Conception boys’ section in
Opelousas, Louisiana (one as community subdirector), one year
in the junior novitiate at De La Salle in Lafayette, and joined
the retirement community there in 1958.
16. 1979: Brother Jarlath de La Salle
(Michael J. Marron) died at age 96 in St. Louis, Missouri.
The seventh of eight children, he was born on November 12,
1882, in County Sligo, Ireland. After his elder brothers migrated
to the United States, Michael followed. His brother Matthias
became a well known pastor in Los Angeles, California, and
John became Brother Honorius Patrick, who was director of
Christian Brothers’ schools in Minneapolis and Chicago.
Michael moved to San Francisco and was a successful
businessman until the city was destroyed by earthquake and fire
in 1906. He moved to St. Louis, where he worked and became
familiar with the Christian Brothers. He entered the novitiate in
1910 in Glencoe, Missouri at age 28. Among his many
assignments in the St. Louis District was one to St. Michael’s
College (high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from 1912 to
1916.
16. 2000: Brother Andrés Celestino
“Andrew” (Prudencio Gonzales) died in Santa Fe,
New Mexico at age 94 of
congestive heart failure. He
was born at Macho Creek in
Pecos Canyon near Santa
Fe, New Mexico, on
January 8, 1906. He
received the brother’s garb
in the novitiate at Sacred
Heart Training College in
Las Vegas, New Mexico,
on October 22, 1921. He
studied in the scholasticate
there for one year and then
taught for 20 years in six
schools: St. Michael’s
College (high school) in
Santa Fe, New Mexico,
1923-1927, then at these
schools in Louisiana¯St. Paul’s College (high school) in
Covington, 1927-1930, St. Peter’s College (high school) in New
Iberia, 1930-1931, Cathedral High School in Lafayette, 19311935, Landry Memorial High School in Lake Charles, 19351938¯and finally at Cathedral High School in El Paso, Texas,
1938-1943. He spent the next eight years at Instituto
Regiomontano in Monterrey, Mexico, the first three as a teacher
and the next five as dean of students, while also serving as
subdirector of the brothers’ community the last two. He was
then sent back to Cathedral High in El Paso as school principal
and community director, 1951-1954, to St. Michael’s College
in Santa Fe as a professor, 1954-1956, and back to St.
Michael’s High in Santa Fe as a teacher for one semester. He
was sent to Mullen Home for Boys in Fort Logan, Colorado, in
January 1957 as a teacher and community subdirector, and in
December that year was appointed community director and
school principal. He served in these capacities until August
1959, when he went back to being a teacher and subdirector. He
then went back to teaching full-time at Cathedral in Lafayette,
1960-1961, and then spent the rest of his life as school
bookkeeper and bursar: St. Michael’s High in Santa Fe, 19611964, Rummel High School in Metairie, Louisiana, 1964-1966,
and St. Michael’s again, 1966-1978. Approaching the age of 73,
he spent the fall semester of 1978 at Cathedral in El Paso and
then went back to St. Michael’s, this time to help with the
bookkeeping and to tutor students needing special help. He
continued both ministries until he was too weak to go on. His
heart problems caused him much pain and many inconveniences
during his last few years, but he bore them with patience and
resignation to God’s will. He was a man of few words with a
serious demeanor, but many brothers remember his kindness
and helpfulness to them when they were the young brothers in
the community. They also noted that he was greatly loved and
admired by the students, not only as a teacher but also as a
friend and supporter.
17. 1867: Brother Castoris of Jesus (Joseph Joos)
died at age 17 of yellow fever in Pass Christian, Mississippi.
He was born on August 2, 1849, in Hohensolern, Germany.
Shortly after his family migrated to the United States, he
entered the novitiate in New York on July 25, 1861, and
received the brother’s garb there at the age of 13 on November
1, 1861. He taught at St. Lawrence O’Toole School in St. Louis,
Missouri, three years, until 1866. He was sent to the
Community of New Orleans, Louisiana, where he taught at St.
Mary’s Academy and then at Pass Christian College in
Mississippi, where he died. Brother Philippe, the superior
general, wrote of him in a short obituary that he was “a very
saintly brother.”
17. 1923: Brother Honorius Edward
(Charles Panter) died in Glencoe, Missouri, at age 68 after
a sudden illness and unsuccessful surgery. He was born on
September 19, 1854, in Meisenbuhl, Baden, Prussia, and
emigrated to the United States in the early 1870s. He entered
the novitiate in Carondelet, Missouri, on December 1, 1877, at
age 23 and received the brother’s garb there on December 8. He
served as a teacher, bookkeeper, community subdirector, and
supervisor of studies in several school in the St. Louis District.
In 1910 he was appointed director of St. Michael’s College
(high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He held the position
until 1916, when the St. Louis District turned over its three
schools in New Mexico to the French brothers who had been
expelled from Mexico in 1914.
18. 1916: Brother Amian of Mary (Robert
William Arends) died at age 65 in Cleveland, Ohio. He
was born in Radervorwald, Düsseldorf, Prussia, on August 20,
1850. Information about his childhood and migration to the
United States is lacking. He entered the novitiate at Carondelet,
Missouri, and received the brother’s robe there on May 30,
1868. He taught in Detroit, Michigan, and Westchester, New
11
York. He was sent to St. Michael’s College (high school) in
Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1880 but did not teach until 1882,
when he was assigned to the oldest students and taught
chemistry. He obviously specialized in mineralogy because he
was appointed the official geologist of the New Mexico
Territory. A printed sheet of paper in the school archives lists
22 assays of minerals and the cost of each, under his name. The
Sierra County Advocate, published in Hillsboro, New Mexico,
contains his report in its March 4, 1887, edition, on the
condition of the mines in the county. There is no record of his
assignment in 1897 but he may have taught at St. Malachy’s
school in Cleveland before his death there.
19. 1905: Brother Bernard of Mary (James F.
Denver) died of stomach cancer in Utica, New York, at age
50. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 31,
1854, and entered the novitiate in New York at age 23 in 1877.
While teaching in New York in 1886 he became seriously ill
and was sent to New Mexico with the hope that a period of rest
in the better climate would improve his health. After 15 months
in Santa Fe and Bernalillo he was well and went back to New
York.
20. 1929: Brother Fabian (Francis Janta) died at age
73 in Glencoe, Missouri. He was born on November 16, 1855,
in Cracow, Poland, and entered the novitiate in Carondelet,
Missouri, in 1874 at the age of 19. He was sent to New Mexico
in 1876 and stayed 40 years. He taught at St. Mary’s College
(high school) in Mora until 1884 and the next 32 at St.
Michael’s College (high school) in Santa Fe. Skilled both as a
teacher and a musician, he produced excellent choirs and bands
that performed not only at school and church functions but at
many civic and festive occasions in the city and nearby
communities. He was the organist at St. Francis Cathedral in
Santa Fe during these 32 years. He also was an expert
photographer. In 1916, when the St. Louis District turned over
its three schools in New Mexico to the French brothers who had
been expelled from Mexico in 1914, Brother Fabian was
assigned to the district’s schools in the Midwest.
20. 1973: Brother Christian Bernard
(Hubert Walter Williams) died peacefully during his
sleep at age 49 the night of February
19-20 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He
was born on February 1, 1924, in
Lockport, Louisiana, and his father
moved the family to take a job in
Lake Charles, Louisiana. There
Walter attended Landry Memorial
High School
and admired the
brothers teaching him. He entered the
junior novitiate at De La Salle in
Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1938, missed
a year of school on account of a
serious heart condition, and received
the brother’s garb in the novitiate on
the same campus on August 14, 1943. He began his college
studies in the scholasticate at Sacred Heart Training College in
Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1944, but the altitude aggravated
his heart condition and in 1946 he was sent back to Lafayette
to complete his studies at the local state college. He taught at
Cathedral High School in Lafayette, 1947-1949, St. Michael’s
College (high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1949-1950,
and the next 22 years in Louisiana: seven at St. Paul’s High
School in Covington, where he was father and mother to young
resident students when they were not in class, two at Hanson
Memorial High School in Franklin, and 13 at Cathedral High
School in Lafayette, where he was assistant principal of the
elementary school. He had long wanted to work in the foreign
missions, and in 1972 he was allowed to go to the brothers’
English-language St. Joseph School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
He did well and taught the day before he died. A very prayerful
brother in his private life, he used his talents as an artist to
create a prayerful environment in his classrooms and in the
dormitories he supervised. He inspired a prayer life in his
students and in the elementary school faculty in Lafayette.
21. 1929: Brother Domnan (Joseph Lavoie) died at
age 88 in Chicago, Illinois. He was born in Kamouraska,
Canada, on September 20, 1840, and entered the novitiate in
Montreal on August 19, 1857. He taught in the Deep South 25
years: St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans, Louisiana, 18591861, St. Vincent’s Academy in nearby Jefferson City, 18611866, St. Mary’s College in Galveston, Texas, 1866-1867, St.
Joseph’s parochial school in Baton Rouge, 1867-1870, St.
Joseph’s Academy in New Orleans, 1870-1872, St. Theresa’s
parochial school, in New Orleans, 1872-1873, and Pass
Christian College in Mississippi, 1873-1874. Except for his last
two years in Memphis, he spent the rest of his life teaching in
the St. Louis District schools in Chicago.
22. None.
23. 1957: Most Rev. Jules B. Jeanmard, D.D.,
A.F.S.C., bishop of the Diocese
of Lafayette, Louisiana, died at age
77 in that city. He was born in
Breaux Bridge, near Lafayette, on
August 15, 1879, and ordained a
priest for the Archdiocese of New
Orleans in 1903. He was appointed
vicar general of the archdiocese and
facilitated the brothers’ return to it
in 1918. When the Diocese of
Lafayette was created that year, he
was appointed its founding bishop
and immediately welcomed the
brothers to it. He championed their then almost unknown and
poorly-understood vocation of teaching brothers. He was
instrumental in the opening of all their parochial schools in the
diocese and in acquiring the property of Magnolia near
Lafayette for their novitiate, junior novitiate, and provincialate.
He was given letters of affiliation in 1928.
12
23. 2008: Mr. Robert Trahan, A.F.S.C.,
died in Lafayette, Louisiana, after a long battle with cancer. A
student of the brothers at Cathedral High School in Lafayette,
he was a faithful friend and generous benefactor to the brothers
in Lafayette and to the district. He was given letters of
affiliation in 1996.
24. None
25. 1936: Brother Leander Patrick (Peter P.
O’Neill) died in Memphis, Tennessee, at age 77. He was born
on June 29, 1858, in Domaughmore, Wicklow, Ireland, and
received the brother’s garb in the novitiate in Carondelet,
Missouri, on August 15, 1880. He was community subdirector
at St. Joseph’s Commercial Academy in New Orleans,
Louisiana, from 1890 until 1900, when the brothers withdrew.
25. 1956: Brother Abadir Joseph (Pierre F.
Durand) died of an intestinal occlusion in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, two weeks short of age 83. He was born on March 9,
1873, in the village of Vans in the
French department of Ardèche. He
was the fourth child and only son,
and his mother died delivering
him. He was raised by his eldest
sister, until she joined an order of
religious sisters. He was a leader
both in school and in the parish
catechism classes. Encouraged
and strongly recommended by his
pastor, he entered the junior
novitiate in Paris in June 1888 at
age 13. He had a period of
homesickness for the mountains,
plains, and open spaces of his birthplace. However, the daily
activities soon occupied all of his attention, and he enjoyed the
recognition by his classmates as their leader. He received the
brother’s garb in the novitiate on the same campus on May 4,
1890, from the brother superior general and the name Abadir
Joseph. Toward the end of his year of studies in the
scholasticate on the same campus, he dreamed of going to the
foreign missions. The assistant to the superior general in charge
of the motherhouse approved, the assistant for the Englishspeaking North American districts needed brothers, and a few
days later Brother Abadir Joseph was on a ship leaving for New
York. He was sent to the scholasticate in Amawalk for one year
to learn English, and he learned it so well that he spoke it like
an American native. His first assignment, at age 20, was to
Burlington on Lake Champlain, to teach a class of 96 boys, in
both French and English. He needed only a few days to gain
their respect, admiration, and cooperation, in part because he
coached the hockey team. The following year, 1893, he was
sent to Notre Dame School in Fall River, Massachusetts, where
he again taught over-size classes in both French and English.
After four years of such exhausting work his lungs gave out,
and the doctor prescribed complete rest. In January 1897 he was
sent to the junior novitiate in Troy, New York. Suddenly, with
no explanation on record, he was teaching in the diocesan minor
seminary in Versailles, France, in 1899. In 1900 he taught in the
juniorate in Mende and in the scholasticate in Vals. In 1902 he
was assigned to the boarding school, Notre Dame, in Le Puy,
and in 1903 to the boarding school, St. Privat, in Mende. When
that school was closed in 1905 as a result of the anti-religious
laws of 1904, he was among the brothers who chose to go
Mexico and enrolled in a course in Spanish at Clermont-Ferrand
in the fall. He was in the first group of French brothers to leave
for Mexico and was on the founding faculty of Colegio San
Pedro y San Pablo in Puebla, in January 1906. His students
learned English so well that the state inspectors visiting the
school asked the boys where they had learned to talk like North
Americans. He got similar results in Monterrey, 1908-1909,
Morelia, 1909-1913, and Querétaro, 1913-1914. When all
foreign priests and religious were forced out of Mexico in 1914
by the Carranza revolution, Brother Joseph was in the group
deported by train to the Texas border, where he received the
order to go immediately to Fall River, Massachusetts. He taught
at Notre Dame School again and was appointed director in
1917. In 1919 he was sent to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where
he taught at La Salle Institute one year. He was appointed the
district’s vocation director in 1920 and was transferred to
Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1921. He recruited hundreds of boys for
the junior novitiate until 1930, when he was appointed director
of Landry Memorial High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
He felt totally unqualified for the position and begged to be
relieved. His request was granted in October 1931 and he was
sent to St. Michael’s College (high school) in Santa Fe, New
Mexico, and stayed the rest of his life. He was appointed
vocation director for the western part of the district in 1932. For
20 years he traveled to cities and villages all over New Mexico
and Colorado and found hundreds of boys to send to the junior
novitiates in Las Vegas and Lafayette. His poor health forced
him to retire at age 77, and he remained in his community. He
died in St. Vincent hospital in Santa Fe after surgery.
26. 1973: Brother Alain Félix (René Tigréat) died
at age 89 in Covington, Louisiana. He was born on October 30,
1883, in Plounéventer in the French department of Finistère.
This was a devout Catholic area where
“Breton” was the language of both
church and government and French was
learned and used only in school. He
entered the novitiate in Paris at age 17 in
September 1900 and received the
brother’s garb there on December 18.
Due to his inadequate early education he
spent two years instead of one in the
scholasticate in Paris and was sent to
teach in the orphanage in FleuryMeudon, 1904-1905. He did two years of
military service. In 1907, when most of
the brothers’ schools in France had been
closed on account of the anti-religious laws of 1904, he chose
to go to Mexico and spent the whole year 1907-1908 studying
Spanish in Clermont-Ferrand. He left for Mexico in November
13
1908 and was assigned to a community of four in the small
town of Acatzingo, near Puebla, where the brothers taught the
poorest of the poor. He then taught two years in a similar
school, La Concordia, in Puebla, and in 1912 was sent to
Monterrey, where he taught one year in Instituto de las Ciencias
del Sagrado Corazón and one year in a small school in the
nearby city of Saltillo. When they had to leave in 1914 on
account of the Carranza revolution, he was sent to the District
of San Francisco, California. He spent the first year in the
scholasticate at Oakland with several of his French confrères
learning English and the next three teaching in Sacramento. In
1918 he was in the first community of brothers at St. Paul’s
College (high school) in Covington, Louisiana. In 1920 he was
sent to Cathedral High School in Lafayette, Louisiana, and in
November to St. Peter’s College (high school) in New Iberia,
Louisiana, where he taught until 1927. He was sent back to
Covington for two years, then to the junior novitiate at De La
Salle in Lafayette, 1929-1934, Kirwin High School in
Galveston, Texas, 1934-1936, and back to the junior novitiate
in Lafayette for one year. He taught at Landry Memorial High
School in Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1936-1938, Mullen Home
for Boys in Fort Logan, Colorado, 1938-1941, St. Paul’s in
Covington again, 1941-1943, Cathedral High School in El
Paso, Texas, 1943-1947, at Mullen in Fort Logan again, 19471951, and Cathedral in El Paso again, 1951-1956. Finally at age
73 he was sent to retire at St. Paul’s in Covington. There he
rendered various support services as long as he was able and
lived in peaceful retirement until he died. Brother Richard
Arnandez, who was his student as a young boy at St. Peter’s in
New Iberia, wrote: “We loved and respected Brother Felix
because we knew and felt that despite his cold and severe
appearance he really loved us and was interested in our studies,
our behavior, and our future.”
26. 2010: Brother
Généreux (Vo Van Nhòn) died in Ho
Chi Minh, Vietnam, at age 66. He was born
in Vietnam in 1944 and entered the
novitiate there. He taught in Christian
Brothers’ schools in Hue, Hien Vuong, and
Ban Me Thuot. During a Viet Cong
offensive in 1968 one of his more
memorable acts was sloshing through mud
to find and recover the bodies of two
brothers whom the Viet Cong had buried alive. He escaped
from the country during the Viet Cong conquest of Ho Chi
Minh city in 1975. For the next 30 years he served Vietnamese
refugees abroad, including those in the United States. In 2005
he felt called to return to his country in order to help reestablish
the District of Vietnam. The brothers and his relatives in
Vietnam thought that his life of 30 years in Western culture
would make it impossible for him to adapt to their life style, and
they tried to persuade him to stay where he was. However, he
was determined, and the Vietnamese district council agreed to
accept his help. He opened a special foreign language school in
Maithon to teach English. He then decided he could help the
district become financially stable by raising money in the
United States, and the district council allowed him t
12. 1937: Brother Heraclian (Edmund Carney)
died of a heart attack at age 81 in Glencoe, Missouri. He was
born on November 18, 1856, in Liverpool, England, to Irish o
go on a fund-raising trip. He left notice that classes in Maithon
would resume in October 2007. However, when he returned, he
became severely ill, unable to work at all, and lingered for three
years until his death. His many former students present at his
funeral testify to the impression he made on them over 35 years
earlier.
27. 1921: Brother Arthemian (Edouard Denis) died
in Chicago, Illinois, at age 75, of injuries received when a truck
hit him near the brothers’ residence at St. Mel High School in
that city. He was born on June 20, 1844, in Montreal, Canada,
and received the brother’s robe on December 8, 1858, in the
novitiate there. He was sent to teach at St. Michael’s College
(high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1890-1891, and then
was community director and principal at St. Joseph’s
Commercial Academy in New Orleans, Louisiana, until 1893.
After eight years in other assignments, he was appointed
director of La Salle Institute in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in
1901 and remained 13 years. He became seriously sick in 1914
while in Canada raising funds for his school and did not return
to Las Vegas. He spent the remainder of his life in the Midwest.
28. None
Produced by Brother James N. Grahmann, FSC