Br. Kenneth Gordon

Michael Charles Pfister was born the son of Charles and Marie Biolotzier Pfister on November 11, 1939, in Chicago, Illinois. He had two brothers: Steve and Lawrence, and one sister, Mary Terese. After the death of his father, his mother remarried and Michael acquired four step-sisters: Patricia, Joan, Monica, and Eileen. He attended Our Lady of Victory Grade School in Chicago and St. George High School under the supervision of the Christian Brothers. He entered the Novitiate in Glencoe in August of 1957 where he received the habit and the religious name of Brother Kenneth Gordon. He graduated "Cum Laude" from St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota, in 1961 and received his first teaching assignment at La Salle High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. He remained there for five years before being transferred to Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1968 Kenneth was assigned to Newport Catholic High School in Newport, Kentucky, and six years later, in 1974, Ken was assigned to Helias High School in Jefferson City, Missouri, where he taught and worked part time for the Cole County Juvenile Court as a counselor and court officer. He worked for a short time in 1983 at Mercy Boys Home in Chicago but was reassigned to La Salle High School in Cincinnati where within two years he was named principal. In 1987 he accepted an assignment to the Financial Aid office at Christian Brothers College in Memphis, Tennessee. After five years at CBC he took a job with the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center in Pacific, Missouri. His mental and physical health declined in 1998 and he moved to the Brothers' Community in Forest Park, Illinois. He entered Resurrection Life Center in 2004 and on November 24th he suffered a heart attack while on dialysis. He was sixty-five years of age and had been a De La Salle Christian Brother for forty-six years.