Brother Bede (Sylvester) Stadler, CSC (1911-1992)

Heroic Missionary

Brother Bede was born in Manawa, WI and attended schools there.  He worked in various jobs and joined the Brothers of Holy Cross in 1931 making first vows in 1933. 

Having taken the foreign mission vow, his first assignment was to Bengal for ten very devoted years. He was among the Holy Cross missionaries who were caught in India during World War II. As the headmaster of Holy Cross High School in Bandura, India, he went through the severe famine of 1943, the riots and demonstrations for freedom from British rule, and the threat of Japanese invasion.  During the famine Brother Bede helped government officials in distributing food.  Once he returned to the States, he seldom talked about these experiences, yet it was evident that he paid a heavy price. 

When he returned in 1948, he taught Latin at Reitz Memorial High School in Evansville, IN, and then spent the next eleven years in Monroe, MI at Catholic Central High School serving as librarian and assistant principal.  In 1962, he joined the faculty at Holy Cross High School in River Grove, IL teaching his Latin classes and developing one of the finest high school libraries in the Midwest Province. Upon retirement at Holy Cross, he continued to serve the community as a housekeeper and spent a great amount of his free time researching his family history and publishing an extensive genealogy of the Stadler family.  

After nineteen years of devotion to the students and the Brothers at Holy Cross, Brother Bede moved to Dujarié House continuing to live a life of generosity.  He might best be memorialized by this scriptural approbation: “Show yourself as a model of good deeds in every respect.” Titus 2:7