Br. Immanuel Leo

Fred Oberrieder was one of six children. He had two sisters: Theresa Rose and Mary Anne and three brothers: David, Eugene, and Richard. He attended Annunciation Grade School and De La Salle Military Academy in Kansas City. Upon graduation from high school n 1947 he entered the Novitiate at Glencoe, Missouri, and received the religious name of Brother Immanuel Leo A year later he began his undergraduate studies at St Mary’s College in Winona, Minnesota. After two years at St Mary’s, he chose to join the “working Brothers crew” and discontinued his undergraduate studies for a short period of time. While assigned to St. George High School in Evanston he continued his studies and in 1957 completed his B.S.S. Degree. In 1959 he was assigned to Helias High School in Jefferson City where he remained until 1965 when he was assigned for a year to De La Salle High School in Chicago. Fred returned to his hometown of Kansas City in 1966 to teach at De La Salle High School while earning his M.A. in History from De Paul University in Chicago in 1968. From 1972 to 1974 he taught at Helias High School again and in 1974 he spent a semester at De La Salle Education Centr in Kansas City. In the fall of 1975, he was assigned to La Salle High School in Cincinnati where he remained for thirteen years until 1988, when he was assigned to Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis. He worked at Regina Cleri in St. Louis from 1994 to 1999 as Program Director and in 1999 became a Home Care Giver for his father in Kansas City. In 2005 he became a volunteer at the Little Sisters of the Poor in Kansas City as a volunteer at Cristo Rey School n K.C. From 2005 to 2015 he also volunteered at O’Hara High School in his hometown. Over his 66 years as a De La Salle Christian Brother he served the students as a teacher, assistant principal, Christian Service Director, and volunteer tutor. He died at age ninety-one at Swedish Hospital in Chicago on October 25, 2022. A funeral Mass for him was celebrated in Saint Borromeo Hall at Lewis University and at his request his body was brought to Kansas City for a Mass at St. John Francis Regis Church before he was buried next to his parents in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Kansas City on November 10, 2022.