Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

Page 32 text:

32 LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW Father Gregory O'Bryan, first Rector of Loyola College, whose spirit of manly piety is still happily manifest in the student body. So he became, on the 10th of August, 1907, Rector of Loyola College, which he ruled with wise and fatherly skill for the six following years. In 1913 he was appointed Minister at St. Boni- face College, Manitoba, and in 1914 Vice- Rector. But his health had long been unequal to the strain and responsibility of superiorship. Even when he was only twenty-eight his lungs were becoming tubercular. It was by sheer care and buoyant energy that he managed to fulfil his arduous duties. In order to afford him a much needed rest he was transferred,in 1915, to the beautiful Church of Our Lady in Guelph, where he found means, as assistant to the able and devoted Rector, Father Doyle, to do a great deal of good among the people who flocked to him for advice and direction, as he was too weak to go about the parish. However, as the comparative rest of the . Guelph Rectory gradually produced a con- siderable improvement, and as he was once more needed at Loyola, in June, 1917, Father Alexander Gagnieur was again appointed to the rectorship of this college, which had been transferred by Father MacMahon from the cramped quarters of Drummond Street to the new building with its fifty acres at the western extremity of Sherbrooke Street. | But there soon occurred a final break-down. In 1918 he had to spend several months in the sanatorium for tuberculosis at Gabriels, N.Y., in the Adirondacks, where the scientific treat- ment of the physicians in charge and the de- voted ministrations of the Sisters of Mercy succeeded in adding three more years to his truly apostolic life. These years he spent in Guelph, and they were the most edifying of all. His patience and cheerfulness in spite of a con- stant, hacking cough, were positively marvel- lous. Regret at giving so much trouble, grati- tude for the care his brethren took of him, were the salient features of his last days. They brought out unsuspected depths of virtue. After receiving the last sacraments with great fervor, he almost literally died upon his feet, having risen to greet a friend with his ever kindly smile. The end came on February 12th, 1921. R.I.P. Fr. Kavanagh (Labrador Eclipse Expedition).

Page 31 text:

LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 3I and familiar intercourse with so many of the marvels of creation, and his constant efforts to penetrate a few of Nature's secrets, made him realize how little even the most learned knew about God and His works. Notwithstanding his years of study, he was profoundly con- vinced that he had hardly touched the fringe of things, and he waited patiently for the day when he would see the Author of all, face to face, and learn from Him the mysteries of the Universe. He died peacefully, June 5, 1920, fortified by the rites of the Church. He was buried in the little cemetery of the Order at Sault au Recollet, the cradle of his life as a Jesuit. — Е. J.D. Rev. Alexander Gagnieur, SJ LEXANDER GAGNIEUR--not Gagnier, as his name is incorrectly spelled in Morgan's Canadian Men and Women of the Time (1912) and in The Catholic Who's Who and Year-Book 1921—was born in Toronto on the 22nd of January, 1863. His father, Antcine Gagnieur, was a native of France and a skilled musician. His mother. Elizabeth Allan, was born in Scotland and married in Canada. Her most important liter- ary work is Conflict and Triumph, a dramatic poem of more than three hundred pages, which sketches in melodious, thought-laden verse the history and teaching of the Catholic Church. It was published several years after her death by the Canadian Messenger Press, Montreal, 1908, a handsome volume for a gift to learned friends. The two sons of this devout Catholic couple entered the Society of Jesus. William, the elder, born in May, 1857, became a novice in 1873, has been for more than thirty years, a nd still is one of the most learned and zealous missionaries among the Indians of Lake Super- ior and Lake Huron. Alexander, the younger son, took more time to discover his religious vocation. After enjoying the atmosphere of a cultured home and gcing through the usual High School course, he devoted his youthful activity to commercial pursuits, in which he acquired that business tact and financial flair which were later on to make him a successful administrator of parish and college funds. When he was half way through his twenty- fifth year he felt and answered the Divine call to a higher life, entering the Sault-au-Récollet novitiate on the 30th ої July, 1887. After the two years of noviceship he had two additional years of juniorate to perfect his arts course. From 1891 to 1893 he taught Latin rudiments in St. Mary's College, Montreal. From 1893 to 1895 he studied philosophy in the scholas- ticate of the Immaculate Conception, in this city. Then he taught the classics for a year at St. Mary's College and for two years at the then newly organized Loyola College in Drum- mond Street. In 1898 he went back to the . Immaculate Conception for his theological course and was ordained priest.on the 30th of June, 1901. | From 1901 {о 1903 he taught опе of the higher classes at Loyola College, and then spent his year of tertianship at Mold in Wales. On his return from Great Britain in 1904, he was appointed Pastor of the Jesuit Church at Sault St. Marie, Michigan, a post which he held with marked success for three years. His pleasing address, mellow voice and fluency in the pulpit, coupled with his quietly shrewd business talent, won the esteem and trust of his parishioners. These precious gifts pointed him out as a not too unworthy successor to the illustrious

Page 33 text:

LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 33 ALUMNI T HE Rev. FATHER THOMAS BRACKEN was. ordained priest оп Мау. 21st 1921. Our heartiest congratulations to the newly annointed- and to his beloved parents. · Nor can we neglect to extend similar greetings to all of the royal House of the O’Neills. With them, if with anybody, the old Irish proverb must be most true: There is no honor like having a Soggarth Aroon іп the family and.no re- ward like hearing T-as on Aifrean (Holy Mass). But Tommy was always а boisterous chap even before he reached his teens. Tradition depicts Біт as toddling over from St. Pat- rick’s School to the Drummond. St. College one September morn in 1909. Among his former teachers at St. Patrick's we must mention the Reverend Brothers Bernard and Walter. And of course, he had for principal, while. there; the Venerable Brother Prudent. Who of our business men, our brothers and our Priests for the last couple of generations have escaped this great edu- cator's goodly influence? After being on the college muster roll for a complete course in classics and science the future Father Tom graduated in 1917. A wiling supporter. of all college enterprises his name was ever well to the front in the accounts of Field Day sports, baseball games, dramatic and musical entertainments. Зо short, but oh my! So tall as he holds the college record for the Pole Vault. Father Bracken’s first clerical appoint- ment is as assistant pastor at St. Willibrod's. The good folks of Verdun will surely enjoy the sweetness of his manners and his voice. Perhaps his worthy pastor, Father Patrick McDonald, will give full scope to his energetic initiative. Loyola's tennis courts are last- ing monuments to the first outbreaks of his youthful energies when he and the others of Class 17 first blazed the trail from Drum- mond St. to Notre Dame de Grace. However, may hissowing of the Word of the Lord in suburban Verdün prove more successful than his supposed planting around the college grounds of some hundred valuable chestnuts which have yet to see the light of day. s Rev. Father Henry Frederick Bartley C.S.S.R., was born in Montreal іп December, 1893. He owes his primary education to the Brothers of St. . Leo’s School, Westmount. He was a student at Loyola College for four years. He also studied at St. Mary’s College, Northeast, P.Q. and at St. Anne de Beaupré. His novititate days were spent at Ilchester, Md. and his final preparation for the priesthood in phi- losophy and theology was gone through at Mount St. Alphonsus-on-Hudson, Esopus, N. Y. His ordination took place at the Mount on June 26th. He celebrated his first Mass at the Sacred Heart Convent, Sault-au-Recollet, where one of his sisters is a Madame of the Sacred Heart. He sang his first High Massin St. Leo’s Church, Westmount, Que. on July 3, 1921. It was because the new priest was a student of Loyola that Rev. W. H. Hingston, Rector of Loyola College, was asked to officiate as archpriest at the solemn High Mass. Rev. | Father Donnelly, C.S.S.R. and Rev. Father Flood, of St. Anthony’s, who assisted in the celebration, and Rev. Father Murray, C.S.S. R., who preached the sermon, are all gradu- ates of Loyola. For these happy events his parents came on from their home in. Van- couver, В.С. His. brother Lawrence was already on hand, being in Second Year High. In the. field of spirituality Father Henry will no doubt. often head the race at a rapid stride and save the day, as of yore he used to do for his class when on the track team and leader of its relay quartette: ` As regards Reverend Father Leo Зех- smith, C. S.S. R. and other Old Boys among the Redemptorist Levites who are being or- dained this year, the Review has to wait till our camera-man can catch them on their first missionary tour to Montreal. Harvey ` Dandurand, after. а lingering illness, died: шт. ‘Montreal on July. 28th, 1920. Не маз only twenty-four years ОЇ age. He attended St.: Mary's for several terms and Loyola for one. Well known to all baseball, lacrosse and hockey fans, he helped out our hockey team for a season; but his fame as an athlete rests with the