Br. Genebern

Frederick Steiner was born on January 20, 1844, in Liesberg, Switzerland, the son of Jacob and Theresa Kohlar Steiner. The family emigrated to the United States where Frederick was educated by the Brothers at St. Mary's in Detroit, Michigan. He entered the Montreal Novitiate in May of 1857 at the age of thirteen where he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Genebern. His first teaching assignment was in the elementary classes at Christian Brothers College in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1860 he was assigned at the orphanage in Carondelet where he conducted a boys' choir for the Cathedral. It became the pride and joy of Monsignor Ryan, the pastor, who later became the Archbishop of Philadelphia. Brother Genebern was assigned to Calvert Hall in 1866 and Rock Hill College in 1967. He was one of the eight pioneer Brothers who established a college in San Francisco where he eventually became the Director. He later taught in Sacramento and worked in Oakland where he died at age sixty-three, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for fifty years.