Br. Hyacinth Bernard

Robert was born on September 5, 1915, the son of Robert and Mary Elizabeth McSweeny Lane, in East St. Louis, Illinois. His family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where Robert, following his older brother, Joseph, (later to become Brother Jarlath Robert), entered the Juniorate at La Salle Institute on November 30, 1930, from De La Salle High School in Chicago. Robert entered the Novitiate on August 30, 1933, where he received the robe and the religious name of Brother Hyacinth Bernard. Three years later he was admitted to the Mount Saint Rose Tuberculosis Sanitorium near St. Louis. Upon recovery his tour of duty took him to De La Salle High School in Kansas City, Missouri; Cretin High School in St. Paul, Minnesota; St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois; and Holy Name High School in Escanaba, Michigan. He was sent to the missions in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, in February of 1962 and became Director in 1966 of Colegio La Salle in Chiquimula. In 1969 he was named Director of Liceo La Salle in Chiquimula and returned to the United States to Sangre De Cristo Center for the one-hundred days retreat. He was then assigned to St. Patrick High School Community in Chicago, Illinois, in 1973 for the purpose of study at local universities. He became ill and died in November of a heart attack. He was fifty-eight years old and had been a De La Salle Christian Brother for forty-three years.