Br. Osmund Joseph

Daniel O'Meara was born the son of John and Mary Meagher O'Meara on April 2, 1839, in Tipperary, Ireland. He and his family emigrated to the United States and at age fourteen entered the Novitiate in St. Louis at Cerre Street on April 15, 1853. Here he received the habit and religious name of Brother Osmund Joseph. In 1854 he was assigned to Troy, New York, and 1856 at St. Thomas in Canada. He returned to New York in 1859 and was assigned to Santa Fe in 1862 and to Taos in 1865. He briefly returned to New York in 1868 but was assigned to Brownsville, Texas, in 1869 where he opened and closed a year later, the Oblate Mission School. He was assigned to Pass Christian, Mississippi, in 1879 and to Prairie du Chien in 1872. The remainder of his career he served in: Chicago - 1873, Memphis - 1874, New Orleans - 1878, Santa Fe - 1879, New York - 1893, and St. Louis - 1899. He retired to Glencoe as one of the most noted linguists of the District in 1909 where he died at age seventy-one, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for fifty-seven years.