Dates

• Existence: 1901-10-16 - 1978-02-24

Biographical note

William Edmund FitzGerald was born on October 16, 1901, in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from LaSalle Academy, Providence, and entered the Society at Yonkers, New York in 1919. The Fitzgerald family was heavily involved with Catholic education. Fitzgerald's younger brother, Rev. James E. Fitzgerald, SJ, was Dean of the College of the Holy Cross and from 1958-1964 served as the 4th President of Fairfield University. Another Brother, Rev. Leo F. Fitzgerald, SJ, was a professor of French at Holy Cross. His sister Elizabeth entered the Order of the Sisters of Mercy; Sister Norberta was a professor of education at St. Joseph's College in Portland, Maine.

He studied philosophy at Weston College from 1923 until 1926 and then taught freshmen and sophomores at Boston College from 1926 until 1929. FitzGerald left Boston College to study theology at Lyons, France from 1929 until 1933 at the College d’Immaculee Conception and was ordained in 1932 at Innsbruck, Austria. From 1933 until 1937, he studied Classics at the Sorbonne, Paris, France.

FitzGerald returned to the United States in January 1937. From 1939 until 1942, he taught Latin at the Boston College Graduate School and served as the director of St. Ignatius House of Studies, Boston College. He was appointed Provincial in October 1950, serving in this position for six years until he was assigned the Director of Construction for the new novitiate, Shadowbrook, in Lenox, Massachusetts.

From 1957 until 1969, he taught at Boston College in a variety of subjects: theology, 1957-1958; philosophy, 1958-1966 in the School of Education; Director of the Special Honors Program in the School of Educations, 1960-1966; and then philosophy, 1966-1969. In 1969 he became professor emeritus and remained active in parish apostolates until his death on February 24, 1978 at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Brighton, MA.