Brother Columba’s handwritten letters are difficult to read. Information about his early formal education does not exist, but his letters indicate that he possessed an elementary understanding of grammar and punctuation. Often his letters are filled with “thought clusters” strung together with little to no punctuation. Moreover, his penmanship is frequently difficult to decipher. Letters posted here are accompanied with a typed transcription.
This letter, written to Father George G. Giglinger, pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Keokuk, Iowa, is the first in a collection of some sixty letters written between the two men from 1912-1923. In the mid-1940s, Giglinger returned to the congregation all of the Columba letters he had saved.
In this letter to Father Giglinger, Brother Columba makes the first reference to St. André Bessette, CSC, living in Montreal. St. André attended the 1920 General Chapter at Notre Dame. If he stayed with the brothers living in the Community House (now Columba Hall), he would have met Brother Columba. No records have been found indicating the two men met each other.