Br. Hilary

Matthew Denison was born on April 7, 1880, at Kilkenny, Ireland, the son of Henry and Ellen Doran Denison. At the age of twenty-one he entered the novitiate at Castletown, Ireland, and volunteered as a missionary to the St. Louis District in the United States. He completed his novitiate at Glencoe, Missouri, in 1902 and was assigned to St. Patrick's High School in Chicago, Illinois. Brother Hilary, as he was to be called in religious life, was assigned to De La Salle High School, also in Chicago, in 1907, but was to return to St. Patrick's three years later and was named Director in 1911. He served at De La Salle Academy in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1915 to 1918 when he was appointed as the founding Director and Principal of De La Salle High School in Joliet, Illinois. Brother Hilary remained in Joliet until 1925 when he was appointed as Sub-Director at Christian Brothers High School in St. Joseph, Missouri. In 1930 he was named Director at St. Joe and remained there until 1936 when he was named Director of St. Patrick's High School in Chicago. Five years later he was appointed Director General of La Salle Institute in Glencoe, Missouri, a position he held until his death at age seventy-two, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for fifty-two years.