Eugene L. Hamilton, O.S.A.

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1914 – 1981 (April 25)

Eugene Leroy Hamilton, son of Eugene Leroy Hamilton and Elizabeth Duff, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 30, 1914. After attending West Catholic High School and La Salle College in Philadelphia, he attended Augustinian Academy in Staten Island, New York, as a post-graduate postulant. He entered the Augustinian novitiate in New Hamburg, N.Y., on September 9, 1935, and professed first vows on September 10, 1936. He professed solemn vows on September 10, 1939. He graduate from Villanova College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in June of 1939, and pursued theological studies at Augustinian College, Washington, DC. He also did advanced studies in Library Science at Villanova. He was ordained to the priesthood at Trinity College in Washington on May 28, 1942.

In June, 1943, Father Hamilton was affiliated and assigned to the recently-formed Midwest Province. His first assignment was to Saint Rita High School, Chicago, Illinois, where he taught for one year. From 1944 to 1947 he taught at Saint Monica Minor Seminary in Oconomowoc, WI and the followin year was teaching again at Saint Rita High School in Chicago. In 1948 he was assigned to Saint Thomas High School in Rockford, IL, where he remained until 1955. In that year he was assisgned to teach at Austin Catholic Prep in Detroit, Michigan. From 1962 until 1979 he taught at Cascia Hall in Tulsa, OK.

In 1979 Father Hamilton was discovered to have cancer. He returned to the Philadelphia area, where he served as chaplain in Sacred Heart Hospital in Conshohocken, PA. He died on April 25, 1981, and is buried in the Augustinian plot at Calvary Cemetery, West Conshohocken, PA.
Father Hamilton was known as a dedicated teacher who reached out with compassion and kindness to the many students whom he taught. A former student wrote of him, “more than a teacher, he was an educator who combined knowledge with values. He knew his job and was dedicated to it totally. He was a hero or the word in not true.”