Br. Hubert Gerard

Edward Denis Schmitz was born the son of Anton and Mary M. Duggan on October 9, 1907 in St. Joseph, Wisconsin. His parents each had been widowed before and brought a family of eight children together, adding two new boys, Edward and Francis - both of whom were to become Christian Brothers. Edward's father died in 1917 and during World War I his mother changed their name to Smythe due to the intense "hatred of all things German." By now the family had moved to Chicago and then met his cousin, Brother James Walter FSC. Edward attended De La Salle High School from which he entered the Juniorate at Glencoe on August 30, 1922. He entered the Novitiate there, receiving the habit and the religious name of Brother Hubert Gerard and continued in the Scholasticate there and in Chicago at De Paul University. He received his B.A. degree and received his first teaching assignment at De La Salle High School in Kansas City in 1929. Brother Hubert Gerard remained there until 1933 when he was assigned to Cretin High School in St. Paul to teach French. In 1937 he taught at CBC, St. Louis and at St. Patrick High School in Chicago and in 1938 he returned to teach at De La Salle in Kansas City where he remained until 1941. He returned to CBC St. Louis in 1941 where he continued with his outstanding teaching and reputation as moderator of yearbooks and school newspapers. In 1948 he established the Blessed Brother Benildus Vocation Club which soon spread to all of the schools in the St. Louis District. He later designed and edited How Stars Are Made, a famous vocation booklet and edited the Mississippi Vista, as well as Lasallian Panorama, La Sallian Digest, the Bulletin, and Auxiliary Bulletin. He wrote a history of the Brothers' work with the Native Americans at Gray Horse, Oklahoma, (Hominy Creek) and the booklet honoring all the deceased Brothers who taught in the Midwest (In Your Charity Pray for Your Brothers). From 1951 to 1963 he wrote the official necrological notices for the St. Louis District and edited the publication of the General Chapter Document of 1967-8 and the Acts of the First United States Regional Chapter. In 1951 he was assigned to teach at De La Salle, Minneapolis and in 1957 to Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1959 he was appointed National Public Relations Director for the Brothers of the United States and took up residence at St. Mary's College in Winona where he took on the additional task of PR Director for St. Mary's College. In 1967 he was appointed the first Director of the CB National Office in Lockport, Illinois. In 1969 he moved to Rome where he edited and published the Institute Bulletin. In mid-1973 he suffered a stroke and afterwards returned to St. Mary's College Community. He died there in 1983 and after a Mass at St. Mary's his body was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Glencoe, next to his younger brother, Brother Justin Matthew, who had died twenty-six years earlier. Brother Gerard was seventy-six years old at the time of his death and had been a De La Salle Christian Brother for sixty-one years.