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Classification: Query
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http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/mkH.2ACIB/75.1.1.2.1
Message Board Post:
Here is what I have been able to find out about Father Carpentier's life up to the
time he became a Dominican priest. Its not much.
Father George Raphael Carpentier, O.P. was born in Rennes, France on March 28, 1887. He
came to this country at a very young age with his father, who was a French Naval
architect. His father was on loan to the U.S. Navy and reportedly served with it during
World War I. The senior Carpentier (also named George) was regarded as “one of the
foremost ordinance experts in the world.” Father Carpentier’s mother had died in France.
His two sisters were left behind in France, one of them becoming a nun. The young
Carpentier was sent to boarding school in Quebec, Canada. As a young man he worked on the
railroad in Louisville, Kentucky. Father Carpentier reported that his father became a
naturalized U.S. citizen in Virginia. Other than these meager details, little is known
about Father Carpentier’s family or if any are still living.
Father Carpentier was educated at the College of St. Louis de Gonzague, Quebec; Loyola
College, Baltimore; and St. Charles College, Endicott City, Maryland. On November 20,
1907, at the age of 20, he applied to enter the Dominican Order at St. Rose’s Priory in
Springfield, Kentucky.
He entered the Dominican Order at St. Joseph’s Priory, Somerset, Ohio, where he made his
profession on December 3, 1908. He was sent to the Dominican House of Studies in
Washington, D.C. and attended the Catholic University of America where he earned two
master’s degrees. Bishop Owen B. Corrigan, auxiliary of Baltimore, ordained Father
Carpentier in the chapel of Caldwell Hall on the Catholic University campus, on June 25,
1913. Raphael was his religious name. His actual middle name is unknown, at this time.
His first assignment came in 1914 when he was assigned as a professor at Aquinas College
High School in Columbus, Ohio.
His death: Father Carpentier died on November 3, 1967 at the age of 80. Father Carpentier
is buried in the Dominican cemetery of St. Peter the Martyr Priory, Winona, Minnesota.
If you are related I would be glad to send you a copy of the article I wrote about his
life. I don't think the George you described and this one are the same, but you never
know.
Hope there is something here that helps.
All the best.