Br. Leonard Placidus

Edward Kromhout's parents, John and Johanna Hientjes Kromhout were born in Holland and emigrated to the United States where Edward was born on February 12, 1919. At age eighteen he entered the Glencoe Novitiate receiving the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Leonard Placidus. He completed his bachelor's degree at St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota, in 1942 although his teaching career had already begun in 1940 when he was assigned to Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska. He was transferred to St. George High School in Evanston, Illinois, where he remained three years before he went to St. Mel High School in Chicago, Illinois. In 1944 he was transferred to Cretin High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he taught until 1950 when be went to De La Salle High School in Kansas City, Missouri, for a year. He returned the next year to Cretin High School and was transferred to Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis, Missouri, where he remained for a year until one day he drove the school bus through the closed gate that he thought had been left open for him. For the next nine years he taught at De La Salle High School in Minneapolis but moved to Hill High School in St. Paul where he worked from 1962 to 1970. He was assigned to Grace High School in Fridley, Minnesota, in 1972 and retired from there twelve years later. He lived in Cretin Highland Community and Cretin Hamline Community from 1982 until his death in September of 1998. He was seventy-nine years old and had been a De la Salle Christian Brother for sixty-one years at the time of his death. His hard work credits him with making the "Dunrovin Dream" a reality.