Br. Leonidian

John Kilkenny was born the son of Thomas and Catherine Carr Kilkenny on April 29, 1839, in Galway, Ireland. His family emigrated to the United States and John entered the Novitiate at Montreal on December 6, 1854, where he received the habit in March and the religious name of Brother Leonidian. He taught in Canada and New York until 1862 when he was assigned to Christian Brothers College in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1866 he was assigned as Director of the College in Pass Christian, Mississippi, but in 1875 when the school closed he was sent as the founder of the Cathedral School in Mobile, Alabama. In 1876, after presiding at the retreat in Memphis, he was assigned as the Pro-Director and Inspector of classes at CBC, St. Louis. He suffered a liver ailment and died quite suddenly at the age of thirty-seven, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for twenty-two years.