Br. Justin Matthew

Francis  M. Schmitz was born on November 18, 1909, in St. Joseph, Wisconsin, the son  of Anton and Mary Mornane Duggan Schmitz, one of eight children of a combined  family for former marriages of his parents.   He and his brother, Edward, children of this union, both became  Christian Brothers.  Edward became  Brother Hubert Gerard.  The family  moved to Chicago when Francis was about four years old, and he entered the  Juniorate at Glencoe upon graduation from the eighth grade.  On August 30, 1926, he was promoted to the  Novitiate where he received the robe and the religious name of Brother Justin  Matthew.  Upon completion of his  Scholasticate training in Glencoe and Chicago, Illinois, Brother Matthew was  assigned to Cretin High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1930 where he  remained for two years.  In 1932 he was  chosen to be the first Brother from the St. Louis District to be sent to  Montreal, Canada in an exchange program which lasted twenty-five years.  He spent two years as professor of English  for older students at Mont-Saint-Louis-College.  Brother Justin was assigned to the  Juniorate teaching staff in 1934 but within a few months he was named  Sub-Director of the Scholasticate.  The  following year he served in the Novitiate before being chosen to attend the  second novitiate in Rome.  He returned  to the District in 1937 and spent the next four years in Chicago at De La  Salle, St. Mel and St. Patrick's High School and it was during these years  that he completed his M.S. degree in history at DePaul University.  In 1941 he was appointed Director of St.  Patrick's and three years later he was named Director of De La Salle High  School in Chicago.  Six years later he  was named Sub-Director of the Community and Principal of Cretin High School  in St. Paul, Minneapolis.  In 1956  Brother Matthew was placed in charge of the Education Department at St.  Mary’s College in Winona, Minnesota, but the following year he was stricken  with cancer and died at age forty-eight, having been a De La Salle Christian  Brother for thirty-four years.