Br. Joel Adrian

John Joseph Valenta was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 19, 1886, the son of Francis and Josephine Rose Cauf Valenta. As a young child, he and his brother expressed a desire to join the Brothers. John entered the Novitiate on December 5, 1904, and received the habit on February 2, 1905, and the religious name of Brother Joel Adrian. Brother Joel was assigned to the Orphanage at Feehanville as a prefect and working Brother. He contracted tuberculosis and returned to Glencoe where he died at age twenty, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for only two years. His younger brother, Francis Joseph Valenta, did become Brother Julian Austin.