Br. John Victorian

ohn Leahy, one of five children, was born the son of Michael and Honora McInerney Leahy on October 17, 1883, on the near west side of Chicago. He attended St. Agatha Grammar School and St. Patrick Academy. John entered the Juniorate at Glencoe in 1898 at age sixteen and a year later his Postulancy there, receiving the habit and religious name of Brother John Victorian. His first teaching assignment was at St. Alphonsus Rock Church in St. Louis in 1900 to teach elementary classes, but a year later he was transferred to De La Salle Institute in Chicago. He returned to St. Louis in 1904 to teach at St. Malachy School until 1907 when he was assigned to teach in Chicago at St. Patrick's Academy, his alma mater. In 1908 he was assigned to Christian Brothers College in St. Joseph, Missouri. He received his bachelor's degree from Loyola University in 1933 and did graduate work at DePaul University, the University of Missouri and Christian Brothers College in St. Louis. In 1911 he was sent to Minnesota where he taught at De La Salle High School in 1911 and at Cotter High School in 1913. He returned to Illinois in 1918 to teach at De La Salle Institute in Chicago, in 1922 at De La Salle High School in Joliet, in 1927 and again in 1943 at St. George High School and in 1945 at St. Patrick Academy. He returned to Minneapolis in 1953 to work at De La Salle High School and at Hill High School in St. Paul in 1959. In 1961 he was assigned to De La Salle Academy in Kansas City and to Bishop Carroll High School in Wichita, Kansas in 1964. Brother John Vic returned to his beloved Illinois in 1966 to be assigned at St. Patrick High School. His career of over seventy years as a Brother saw him as a teacher of religion, English, history, Spanish and biology as well as a registrar, dean of discipline, and a librarian. A year later he moved to the Driscoll High School community in Addison. His health led him to enter the Marianjoy Extended Care Facility where he died at age eighty-seven as Dean of the Chicago District (the oldest Brother in the District), having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for seventy-two years.