Br. Isfrid of Mary

Edward Coogan was born the son of Edward and Mary Hayden Coogan on April 4, 1853, at La Salle, Illinois. Edward entered the Novitiate of the Brothers at Carondelet on March 12, 1868, at age fifteen. There he received the habit and the religious name of Brother Isfrid of Mary. He was assigned to teach elementary classes at St. Patrick School in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1869, but in 1870 was transferred to Christian Brothers College in Pass Christian, Mississippi, in 1870. Brother Isfrid was transferred for one year, 1871, to St. Joseph School in New Orleans, Louisiana, but returned to Pass Christian the following year. He taught in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1872, at Christian Brothers College and was assigned to a warmer climate in Santa Fe in 1874, where he died at age twenty-one, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for six years.