Br. Hugh Bonaventure

Thomas  Patrick and Belinda McCormick Madine gave birth to their son, Thomas Vincent,  on May 12, 1915, in Chicago.  After  attending local parish schools he was enrolled in St. George High School in  1929 when the school was then only two years old.  In February of 1930, Thomas entered the  Juniorate at Glencoe, Missouri, where he was later to write: "From the first time I met the Brothers I had the desire  to become one of them."  Thomas graduated to the Novitiate on August  30, 1933, where he received the habit and the religious name of Brother Hugh  Bonaventure.  He completed his first  year of Scholasticate in Glencoe before being transferred to St. Mary's  College in Winona, Minnesota, where he was to receive his undergraduate  degree in the spring of 1936.  His  first teaching assignment was at Cathedral High School in Duluth, Minnesota,  from 1936 to 1939.  The remainder of  his tour of duty includes: Boys Town, Nebraska, 1939-44; Christian Brothers  High School, Memphis, Tennessee, 1944-46; St. Mary's College, Winona, as  Prefect and Superintendent of Buildings, 1946-49; De La Salle High School,  Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1949-56; Benilde High School in St. Louis Park,  Minnesota, 1956-60; Saint Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, as  teacher and Sub-Director, 1960-63, Saint Gabriel's High School in Lansing,  Michigan, as teacher and Sub-Director, 1963-70, Central Catholic High School  in Muskegon, Michigan, 1971-72.  He had  become famous throughout his lifetime for his rejuvenating of Greyhound buses  for athletic departments at various high schools and for the Brothers' travel  to and from retreats.  He was appointed  Auxiliary Visitor of the Central States District and served in that post from  1971-75.  In 1975 he accepted an  assignment to Lewis University as Director of the Physical Plant and  Properties.  He died there of a heart  attack in 1977 at the age of sixty-two, having been a De La Salle Christian  Brother for forty seven years.