Br. Joseph Matt

William Patrick McGuire was born on December 24, 1849, the son of Sylvester and Elizabeth Coughey McGuire in Ballyphilip, Down County, Ireland. He emigrated to the United States and at age twenty-eight entered the Novitiate at Carondelet, Missouri, on February 15, 1877. In March of that year he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Joseph Matthew. In May of 1878 he was assigned as a working Brother to Christian Brothers High School in St. Joseph, Missouri, and a year later to the Orphanage at Bridgeport, Illinois. Brother Joseph Matthew remained there until 1881 when suffering from tuberculosis, he returned to the novitiate at Carondelet where he died. He was thirty-two years old, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for only four years.