Brother Joseph Bouchard, s.c., a member of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, New York Province, has been a man of service and prayer for seventy-two years, having made first vows in Victoriaville, Canada in 1939. Born in Esmond, Rhode Island in 1921, Br. Joe moved to Biddeford, Maine where he was taught by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart at St. André School. After two years of high school, Br. Joe left home to join the Brothers in Canada.
After his training as a Brother, Br. Joe taught for a few years the young men who were entering the Brothers. He first taught at the Novitiate (where the Brothers train for one year before making first vows) and then at the Scholasticate (the place where the newly professed brothers study before going out to teach).
He was then assigned to schools in New Brunswick, Canada. During all these years of teaching young Brothers and then young men, he was also busy studying for his own degrees at several colleges earning a Bachelors degree in English and, eventually, a doctorate in School Administration from New York University.
In 1956, Br Joe became the Provincial Superior (leader of the Brothers for a region) for the Province of Rimouski, Canada, and served the Brothers diligently in that role for eight years. After finishing this role, at the age of forty-three, Br. Joe left Canada to travel with a group of Brothers to Melbourne, Australia to become the principal of a brand new school, St. John’s College, which had yet to have even one brick laid in its foundation. Br. Joe served the multicultural western suburbs of Melbourne for thirty-three years. To the original school was eventually added a thriving senior high school, Caroline Chisholm College in Braybrook, Australia. In 1997 Br. Joe and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart turned these schools over to lay staff.
Br. Joe was recognized for his many accomplishments in Melbourne when he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, having joyfully served Catholic education in Australia by deed and example for all of those thirty-three years.
At the age of seventy-six, Br. Joe went on to a new adventure and helped the Diocese of Vanuatu (South Pacific) reorganize its Office of Education. He then retired to Rimouski, Canada at 78 years of age.
Yet, one does not keep retired a man of such service and love. He soon moved to Msgr. McClancy Memorial High School to serve the school as Textbook Coordinator and became an informal mentor for many young teachers. His ten years of service to our school saw him running a small computer room in Room 311, fixing many computers for the school, and reorganizing the whole process of maintaining the State textbooks.
In June of 2009, Br Joe left the school to continue servicing the New York Province as Province Archivist and is still joyfully serving in this capacity today.
Br Joe has been a man who has loved God and been inspired with love, joy and wisdom from Him in all his deeds. Br. Joe feels very blessed that his younger sister, Sister Alice Bouchard, was inspired to enter the Ursuline Sisters and become a missionary herself, first in Thailand then in Appalachians of West Virginia. She presently resides in New Rochelle, NY.