Br. Bernardine Peter

John Joseph Robinson was born on March 2, 1856 in Toronto, York, Canada, the son of Henry and Mary Sweeney Robinson. His parents moved to Chicago where John attended St. Patrick's Academy. John entered the Novitiate at Carondelet on July 19, 1871, at age fourteen and received the habit and religious name of Brother Bernardine Peter on August 14, 1871. For the next few years he remained in St. Louis, teaching at St. Patrick's School in 1872, St. Malachy's School in 1874 and at Christian Brothers College in St. Louis in 1875. Brother Bernardine was assigned to CBC, Memphis, in 1876 where, while he continued to teach, he helped to establish the Committee of Hygiene with the aid of the Director, Brother Maurelian, to fight the yellow fever. Later the State Legislature officially approved it under the name "The National Council of Health." He returned to CBC, St. Louis in 1883 for two years but was again assigned to CBC, Memphis in 1885. He only remained one year and was assigned to the college in St. Louis for another four years, 1885-1889. In 1890 he was assigned to CBC Memphis and in 1891 to CBC, St. Louis again. In 1891 he taught at De La Salle in Chicago but returned to Memphis from 1892 to 1897 when he returned to De La Salle for another two years (1897-1899). In 1899 we find him teaching again at the College in St. Louis until 1912 when he again taught for two years at CBC in St. Louis. In 1917 he was assigned to teach at St. John's College in Washington, D.C., but a year later he retired to his beloved CBC in St. Louis. His retirement did not last long as in 1919 he was assigned to CBC, Memphis; in 1920 to De La Salle in Chicago; in 1921 to Minneapolis; in 1922 to Rochester. It was in Rochester that he experienced an attack of paralysis at age 66 which deprived him of his speech in 1923. He was sent to the community of Ancients at Glencoe where he continued his interest as a collaborator in the "Review of Education." His days of teaching Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Gaelic and mathematics ended when he died in 1930 at the age of seventy-four, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for "exactly" fifty-nine years, as he died on the same date as his entrance, July 19th.