Br. Alfred of Mary

Leopold Schwab was born in Steinach, Allemagne Germany on November 15, 1849, the son of George and Magdalene Zimmermann Schwab. His family emigrated to the United States when he was fifteen and settled near Carondelet in St. Louis, Missouri. He sought admission to the religious life and asked to make his Novitiate away from his home. On December 12, 1867, he entered the Novitiate at Pass Christian, Mississippi, and there on April 11, 1868, he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Alfred of Mary. He began his teaching career at St. John the Baptist School in New Orleans but in 1871 he was assigned to Christian Brothers College in St. Joseph, Missouri; in 1874 he transferred to Prairie du Chien; in 1875 to Cretin High School in St. Paul, Minnesota; in 1876 to Christian Brothers College in St. Louis, Missouri; in 1877 he returned to St. John's College in Prairie du Chien and in 1879 he was assigned to Detroit. Brother Alfred of Mary was assigned to CBC in Memphis, Tennessee, from 1886 to 1888 and to St. Vincent's in St. Louis in 1888. He was considered a masterful teacher of German and he taught at St. Michael's College in Santa Fe from 1899 to 1904 when he returned to St. Paul, Minnesota until 1906. He was one year at CBC, St. Louis, before transferring to Memphis. He was assigned to CBC, St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1914 until 1921 when he retired to the Community of Ancients in Glencoe, Missouri, where he died at the age of seventy-eight, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for sixty years.