Brother Brendan Kneale

Excerpt from eulogy at Mont La Salle, August 5th.

It was more or less by accident that Brother Dennis became deeply involved in each of the two major avocations of his life library management and local Moraga history. In the case of the library avocation, it was because he had substituted as high school librarian for Brother Maurice Flynn at St. Mary's High School in Berkeley, that he then became saddled with the reputation of being librarian ever afterwards. In the avocation of Moraga History, he charitably agreed at the formative meeting of that association in 1965, to provide the use of a meeting room at the College - with no original attention on his part of further involvement! He was drafted as a founding member, and "the rest is history!" John Leykam wrote that his work for the Society "became a labor of love."

Similarly, when studying library science in graduate school, and when he came to do his thesis, he was asked to undertake research on a topic that he had resolved not to touch - a cataloguing of all the publications of the American Christian Brothers from 1900 onward, a massive undertaking that required travel all over the United States. He carried out the project with great success providing us Brothers with a valuable document. I think it was his spirit of generosity that led him with similar reluctance to be a major editor of the official history book of the Moraga area, Moraga's Pride, (now in a second edition), which was sponsored by the renowned Moraga Historical Society. The citizens of Moraga appreciated him - they named him "Citizen of the Year" in 1984. Throughout the Bay Area, when California history was to be commemorated, Brother Dennis was a frequently invited speaker. A short testimonial by Moraga Historical Society's Maggie Skinner gives a list of the talks and invocations that Dennis gave over the years - at least 54 of them! He spoke at clubs, churches, schools, dedication ceremonies, civic events and etc. It is no surprise that in 1988 Dennis was given the Award of Merit by the Conference of California Historical Societies. Ms. Skinner also reminds us that the culture and planting of trees, mostly conifers, was another one of Brother Dennis' chief interests. Both at the College and here, Mont La Salle, we have benefited from his enthusiasm. The College certainly appreciated his years of service as faculty member and director of the library, giving him the title Professor Emeritus upon his retirement.

It would probably be remiss of me not to mention two other of Dennis' chief preoccupations. He made extensive inquiries into his own family history, on both the Giguere and Goodman sides, and this led to several trips to Europe. He became a veteran traveler, using his talents in language to meet and talk to ordinary citizens in Germany, France and Spain and even Russia and the Holy Land. He also traveled alone, and extensively in Mexico. These later trips were, in part, to explore the family history of Lieutenant Moraga.

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