Br. John Michael

Stephen  J. Vukits was born on May 25, 1908, in Chicago, Illinois, and was later to  graduate from St. Patrick's in that same city in 1925.  After graduation he worked as a traveling  secretary on the Twentieth Century Limited between Chicago and New York  City.  At the age of twenty-three he  sought and received permission to enter the Novitiate of the Christian  Brothers at Glencoe, Missouri, where he received the habit of the Brothers on  April 21, 1931.  One year later he  completed his Novitiate and entered his Scholasticate in Chicago, Illinois,  where two years later he was awarded his A.B. degree from DePaul University.  His first teaching assignment took him to  De La Salle Institute in Chicago in 1934.   This was to be one of six assignments to De La Salle here during his  teaching career: 1934-35, 1937-39, 1948-53, 1964-65, 1967-68, and 1976-78,  which would keep him there for a total of twelve years.  His second teaching assignment in 1935  brought him to St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois, from 1935 to  1937, and where he was to return from 1966 to 1967.  It was while there the first time that he  received his A. M. degree from Northwestern University in Evanston in  1936.  Brother John Michael taught at  St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota, in 1939 and was assigned for the  first time to Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, Tennessee, in  1940.  Here he taught three different  times: 1940-48, 1972-74 and 1978-80.   In 1952 Brother John Michael was assigned to St. Mel's High School in  his beloved Chicago, Illinois, and remained there for nine years.  Brother John Michael was first assigned to  his alma mater, St. Patrick's High School in 1962 and he was to return here  from 1968-72 and 1981-97 for a total of twenty-two years service at this  school.  In 1965 he was transferred to  teach at St. Joseph High School in Westchester and in 1966 he began his  second of two assignments to St. George High School in Evanston.  In 1974 Brother John Michael taught at  Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco, California, and one year later at  St. Charles Borromeo in Romeoville, Illinois.   He was an avid sports fan all his life.  Brother John Michael retired officially in  1997 and spent the next three years at Christian Brothers Center in  Romeoville, Illinois, De La Salle Community in Chicago and Resurrection Life  Center in Chicago where he died on December 2, 2000, at the age of  ninety-two, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for sixty-nine years