Br. Josiah Pius

Arnold George Kurtz was born on October 23, 1889, in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Adolph James and Joanne Connelly Kurtz. He attended De La Salle High School in Chicago, and upon graduation he entered the Novitiate, receiving the habit and religious name of Brother Josiah Pius on February 2, 1906. After a short period of scholasticate training he was assigned to teach at St. Alphonsus "Rock" School in St. Louis, Missouri. His tour of duty was to take him to Christian Brothers College in Memphis, Tennessee; Christian Brothers College in St. Louis, Missouri; Cathedral High School in Duluth, Minnesota; Heffron High School in Rochester, Minnesota; De La Salle High School in Joliet, Illinois; to his Alma Mater, De La Salle High School in Chicago, Illinois; and to Cretin High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. Brother Josiah Pius survived two historical events of the St. Louis District: the 1916 fire which destroyed CBC in St. Louis where he was on the faculty at the time; and the "Latin Question" resolution of 1922. Brother Pius was a bird watcher enthusiast and formed the first Audubon Bird Club in the Twin Cities area. He moved to the Little Sisters of the Poor and died there at age ninety-six, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for seventy-nine years.