Br. Hector Benedict

Francis Hartigan was born on January 29, 1915, in Chicago. He took a summer job at De La Salle High School and entered in the freshman class of 1929. A year and a half later, in January of 1930, he entered the Juniorate at Glencoe and progressed to the Novitiate where he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Hector Benedict. He took his Scholasticate studies at St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota, where he received his bachelor's degree and the nickname of "Bish." His first teaching assignment sent him in 1937 to Cathedral High School in Duluth, Minnesota. In 1938 he was assigned to Christian Brothers High School in St. Joseph, Missouri, for only one year before being assigned to Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis. In 1940 he was assigned to St. Mel High School in Chicago and remained there for nine years before he moved to St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois. Brother Benedict was assigned to De La Salle High School in Chicago in 1950 and remained teaching there until 1960, when he began his six year assignment at Price College in Amarillo, Texas. He returned to CBHS in St. Joe, Missouri, from 1966 to 1970, when he was transferred to Bishop Bergan High School in Peoria, Illinois. Brother Ben began his last assignment as he returned to CBCHS in St. Louis in 1978. He remained there until his death at age seventy-one, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for fifty-six years.