Br. Ignatius Anthony

John First was born on July 12, 1902, in St. Paul, Minnesota, the son of Thomas J. and Mary Dvorak First. John first met the Christian Brothers when he attended Cretin High School and it was from there on June 2, 1917, at age fifteen, he entered the Juniorate at La Salle Institute in Glencoe. On August 15, 1918, he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Ignatius Anthony and was eventually affectionately called "Tony" by everyone. After his Novitiate and Scholasticate year in Glencoe, Brother I. Anthony was assigned to teach at De La Salle Institute in Chicago in 1920. He remained there six years teaching biology, playing the cornet and continuing his graduate studies, receiving his B.S. from Loyola University in 1926. That same year he was assigned to his alma mater, Cretin High School, in St. Paul, but remained there only one year before being transferred in 1927 to De La Salle High School in Minneapolis. Here he developed his skills as a biology teacher and his love of the outdoors and music. In 1932 he was assigned to St. George High School in Evanston for one semester and to De La Salle High School in Joliet for another, but in 1932 he was assigned to St. Mel High School in Chicago. He returned to St. George High School in 1935-36 and it was that year that his mother died. He was assigned to Cretin High School in 1936 and remained there for the rest of his teaching career, 30 years. In January he was assigned to Benilde High School in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, where he suffered a heart attack. A second heart attack took his life at age sixty-five, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for fifty years.