Br. Junian Felix

John William Scanlan was born on October 26, 1904, in Chicago, Illinois, one of three children and only son of Mr. & Mrs. William J. Scanlan. He and his sisters, Loretta and Agnes became orphans at an early age and he was a "little boy" when he was sent to Guardian Angels Orphanage in Joliet. He attended De La Salle High School in Joliet and took a job as a coal broker after graduation. At age eighteen he entered the Juniorate in 1922 and received the habit and the religious name of Brother Junian Felix when he advanced to the Novitiate in 1923. He continued his education in his Scholasticate years in both Glencoe and Chicago and received his B.A. and first teaching assignment at De La Salle High School in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1927. His career took him to St. Mel High School in Chicago in 1928, to St. Patrick High School in the same city in 1930 and the same year to Christian Brothers High School in St. Joseph, Missouri. He was assigned to CBCHS in St. Louis, in 1931, to De La Salle High School in Chicago in 1935 and to La Salle Institute that same year. He spent a year at Academie de La Salle in Ottawa in 1937 but returned to the Juniorate staff in 1938 at Glencoe. From 1943 to 1948 he served as the St. Louis District Vocation Recruiter and was made Director and Principal of St. Peter High School in Jefferson City, Missouri. In 1948 he made the Second Novitiate in Rome and one year later began serving as Provincial Secretary at Glencoe. In 1954 he was appointed Director and Principal of Cretin High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, but in 1959 he became the founding Principal and Director of Hill High School in St. Paul where he remained until 1965. During this time he was the planner and builder of the Christian Brothers Retreat House at Dunrovin. In 1965 he became the Sub-Director of Benilde High School in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and was the planner for Grace High School in Fridley. In 1966 he was assigned to the Winona District Provincialate as Director of Finance and Development, coordinator of the Grace High School Project and the "807 Summit" Provincialate Renovation. In 1970 he became secretary to Brother Leo Kirby, Assistant Superior General, and Felix moved to Rome. Brother Felix held a bachelor's degree (1927) and master's degree (1933) from DePaul University in Chicago and continued graduate studies at the University of Notre Dame, Manhattan College in New York and the University of Minnesota. When he returned to the Provincialate in 1976 in St. Paul, he was in charge of the development office until he retired in 1983. In 1987 he moved to Holy Family Residence of the Little Sisters of the Poor in St. Paul in 1987 and died suffering from Alzheimer's disease at age eighty-five, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for sixty-eight years.