Br. Leonian George

Francis Kenneth Pahl was born on March 3, 1915, one of six children of Herman and Dolores (St. Martin) Pahl. Four of the Pahl children entered religious life, Francis, Josette, Marian and Cyril. Francis attended Assumption grade school in Richfield, Minnesota, and De La Salle High School in Minneapolis before entering the Juniorate on August 30, 1930, and almost two years later the Novitiate on June 15, 1932. There he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Leonian George. He completed his B.S. in Biology at St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota, in 1934 and was assigned to St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois, in 1937. In January of 1937 he was transferred to De La Salle High School in Chicago and remained there until 1942 when he was assigned to St. Mary's College as a teacher and administrator. In the summer of 1943 he received his M.S. in Biology and in 1947 began his doctoral studies at the University of Notre Dame. For the next twenty two years he taught and wrote and published extensively in the field of biology. In 1953 Brother L. George completed his doctoral studies and received his Ph.D. from Notre Dame. A year after the death of his father in 1968 Brother George was named President of St. Mary's College and was inaugurated in October of 1969. After seven years as president Brother George left St. Mary's and spent half a year working at Bethlehem University and half a year at De La Salle University in the Philippines. In 1979 he volunteered for missionary work full time and was assigned to De La Salle University in Manila, serving there for ten years. Brother George returned to the United States in 1989 and spent a year on sabbatical at his alma mater, Notre Dame. He retired to St. Mary's College in 1990 but in 1995 moved to Roncalli High School in Manitowoc and tutored students each day in mathematics. In 1997 he moved to Christian Brothers University in Memphis seeking warmer weather for his retirement years but returned to St. Mary's a year later and was in residence there until he moved into the Cretin-Durham Hall Community in 2000. Brother George suffered a heart attack and died in the Winona Community Hospital around 7:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 19, 2003, at the age of eighty-eight, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for seventy three years.