Br. Joseph Alphonsus

Frank  Pihaly was born on September 19, 1909, in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He attended De La Salle High School and  entered the Novitiate from there on June 18, 1927, at Glencoe, Missouri.  He received the religious name of Brother  Joseph Alphonsus and the habit of the Brothers on August 30, 1927.  He completed his Scholasticate studies in  Glencoe and Chicago before being assigned at St. George High School in  Evanston, Illinois, in 1931-36, 1938-39, and again in 1949-50.  He spent a year in exchange in Montreal,  Canada, in 1937, and was assigned to Boys' Town in Omaha, Nebraska, from 1939  to 1944.  Brother Joseph was appointed  Sub Director of the Juniorate at Glencoe in 1944 to 1950.  He returned to Chicago to teach at St.  Mel's High School in 1950 and was appointed Sub-Director at Helias High  School in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1953.   From 1955 to 1963 he taught at De La Salle High School in Chicago and  in 1963 he was appointed to De La Salle in Minneapolis.  In 1968 Brother Joseph moved to Holy Name  High School in Escanaba, Michigan and remained there until 1971 when he  returned home to Minnesota at Cretin High School in St. Paul.  It was at Cretin that he and his brother,  Brother Gerard Pihaly, lived together in the same community for the first  time since they both left home to join the Brothers.  And it was there that he suffered a stroke  and died at age sixty-six, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for  forty-eight years.