Br. Honorius Alfred

Lawrence James Shields was born on June 14, 1913, the son of John and Ann Shields who were a farm family in rural Illinois. While attending De La Salle High School in Joliet, Illinois, Lawrence made the decision to follow the life of a religious brother by entering the Juniorate at Glencoe, Missouri, in 1927 where he remained until 1931 where he graduated to the Novitiate, receiving the habit of the Brothers on August 31st as well as the religious name of Brother Honorius Alfred. He remained in Glencoe in 1932-33 to begin his Scholasticate studies, continued them in Chicago, Illinois, in 1933-34 and completed his B.S.S. degree from St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota, in 1935. Brother H. Alfred's first teaching assignment came at De La Salle High School in Minneapolis from 1935 to 1936, followed the following year 1936-37 at St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois. He returned to De La Salle in Minneapolis in 1937 and was assigned to Boys Town, Omaha, Nebraska from 1939 to 1940. Lawrence James Shields returned to his high school alma mater (De La Salle Institute, Chicago, Illinois) as Brother H. Alfred in 1940 and returned to De La Salle, Minneapolis again in 1942 where he remained until he went to De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines, in 1946. He served in the Philippines for 32 years at Manila and Iligan City, and it was in the Philippines that he earned his M.S. at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila in 1950. In 1978 Brother Alfred returned to the United States and De La Salle, Chicago, Illinois, where he taught for the next five years. He joined St. Joseph Community, Westchester, Illinois, in 1983 and worked for the next eleven years on the St. De La Salle Auxiliary. He retired at St. Joseph and remained there until 2000 when he entered Resurrection Life Center where he died some months later. He was eighty-seven years old at the time of his death and had been a De La Salle Christian Brother for seventy-three years.