Br. Cyril Columban

Cyril Peters was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and was placed in St. Peter's Orphanage. As few records were kept in those days, the exact date of his birth was unknown and one was chosen at a later time. In 1937, Rosa J. Conroy took him home and made him a part of her family of two other adopted children and in 1946 she officially adopted Cyril and he changed his name to Cyril Peters Conroy. Cyril attended Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, Tennessee, and always wanted to become a Brother but was devoted to the care of his mother. Rosa Conroy died at age eighty-eight in 1964 and in April of that same year Cyril followed his dream of entering the Christian Brothers. He used his unique manual skills to work on the "mobile crew", a group of Brothers who moved from school to school in the province "doing what needs to be done." Brother Cy was a World War II Army veteran and received a Purple Heart. He returned to Memphis in 1970 and spent the next twenty-three years working at Christian Brothers University on special construction projects. His adopted Irish temperament was legendary. He died at age seventy-one from a heart attack and was formally in his twenty-seventh year as a De La Salle Christian Brother.