Br. Noah

From 1859 to 1864, Brother Noah studied the art of education, sojourning in Quebec, Rochester, Manhattanville, and finally to Baltimore, where he was given his first class at Calvert Hall Academy. In 1867 he was named Director of the new community in St. Joseph, Missouri. Brother Noah, with three other Brothers, was sent to Brownsville, Texas, where they opened the oblate Mission School on January 1, 1869. The venture only lasted for one year and he was assigned to Pass Christian, Mississippi, in 1870. In August of 1872 he was given directorship of La Salle High School in Philadelphia. In 1875 the Institute was determined to open elementary schools in England. Two Brothers were sent to Liverpool to the school of St. Patrick. Brother Noah was called from America as their Director. First he had to get licensed by the English Government and was named the first master of the school called Dr. Gross Memorial and was respected by academic and ecclesiastical authorities alike. Due to illness he was forced to retreat to France to build up his strength before he returned to the United States. He returned to New York and worked on a series of books and lectures and taught literature for some time at the La Salle Institute and Manhattan school. Convinced that a sincerely Catholic literary work would help the American student, he put himself to the task and produced a remarkable work, to which he added some translations of the Conduct of Schools, diverse meditations and pedagogical notes. During the vacation that preceded his death, Brother Noah asked for authorization to make a special retreat, having in mind the preparation of another translation he would undertake. However, he contracted a cold in December of 1896, and this rapidly degenerated into pneumonia. He died at age fifty-two on January 30, 1897, in his thirty-ninth year as a De La Salle Christian Brother.