Br. Justus Damian

Vincent Aloysius Tessier was born in the St. Vincent Infant Asylum, Chicago, on January 25, 1922. In February of 1923 he was moved to Cook County Sanatori­um, suffering from rickets and suspected tuberculosis. There he remained for seven years. He was placed in St. Mary's Training School in Feehanville, Illinois, where on June 15, 1941, he entered the Novitiate at Glencoe, Missouri, where he received the habit and religious name of Brother Justus Damian. He completed one year of Scholasticate and then began working on the farm at St. Mary's College. Five years later he returned to Glencoe to work on the La Salle Institute farm. In 1954 injuries he suffered in a truck accident paralyzed him from the waist down. In a wheelchair the remainder of his life, he continued his work at Glencoe on the farm, auxiliary, mission collections, and vocations. In 1966, when the Chicago District formed, he asked to be assigned to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, where he became a counselor, attendance officer and library assistant, among other duties. He died of a heart attack there at age sixty, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for forty-one years.