Brother Columban Ignatius (James McGowan)

Brother Ignatius was actually Brother Columban Ignatius and that his given name at birth was James McGowan. He died peacefully in 1997 in Lafayette, Louisiana, at age 83. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on January 29, 1914, and entered the junior novitiate at De La Salle in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1927. He received the brother’s robe in the novitiate there on July 1, 1930, and studied in the scholasticate at Sacred Heart Training College in Las Vegas, New Mexico, 1931-1933. He taught at St. Peter’s College (high school) in New Iberia, Louisiana, 1933-1936, St. Michael’s College (high school) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1936-1940, Cathedral High School in El Paso, Texas, 1940-1944, Mullen Home for Boys in Fort Logan, Colorado, 1944-1947, and St. Paul’s College (high school) in Covington, Louisiana, 1947-1952. He then volunteered for the American districts’ foreign missions in 1952 and spent ten years teaching in the Colegio San José for Indians in Bluefields, Nicaragua, except the year off in 1952-1953 for special studies at the brothers’ international motherhouse in Rome. He taught at Cathedral in El Paso again, 1957-1958, Kirwin High School in Galveston, Texas, 1958-1960, at the Academy of the