24 Facts About Edward Sorin

Edouard Frederic Sorin was born on February 6,1814, at in Ahuille, near Laval, France, to Julian Sorin de la Gaulterie and Marie Anne Louise Gresland de la Margalerie.

Edward Sorin was the seventh of nine children, and he was born into a well-off middle-class family and grew up in a three-story manor home with seven acres of land.

Edward Sorin's family was religious and had sheltered two non-juring priests during the persecutions of the French Revolution.

Edward Sorin received an early education in the home, in the local village school, and by the local parish priest.

Edward Sorin then enrolled in the School of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Laval, but after one year he decided to become a priest and with his family's backing enrolled at the diocesan seminary in Precigne.

Edward Sorin became interested in missionary work after listening to the pleads of Simon Brute, bishop of Vicennes in Indiana, who had returned to France to recruit missionaries.

Simon Brute, who Edward Sorin has witnessed recruiting priests and missionaries for his recently established diocese in Vincennes in Indiana, died in 1839.

Edward Sorin accepted the bishop's second offer of establishing themselves in the parish of St Peter in Montgomery.

Edward Sorin celebrated Mass and gave spiritual assistance to around thirty-five Catholic families in the area, preaching in French and sometimes English, a language Edward Sorin was only beginning to learn.

Edward Sorin described his arrival on campus in a letter to Basil Moreau:.

Edward Sorin ran Notre Dame on the model of a French boarding school, which included elementary, preparatory, and collegiate programs, as well as a manual training school.

In 1850 Edward Sorin asked the federal government to establish a post office at Notre Dame.

Edward Sorin sent its former bishop and other priests together with a band of sisters, described as a worthy group.

Edward Sorin's strength was demonstrated on April 23,1879, when a fire destroyed the Main Building, which housed virtually the entire university.

Edward Sorin willed Notre Dame to rebuild and continue its growth.

Edward Sorin signaled all of them to go into the church with him.

Timothy Edward Howard provided a first-person account of what Sorin said inside Sacred Heart Church:.

Edward Sorin believed a divine hand was involved in the fire's origins, but ascribed it directly to God, whom Edward Sorin suspected of being angry over "infidelity" and "neglect," not the dimensions of the building.

Edward Sorin had an ambitious goal for the new Administration Building, constructed over the summer of 1879.

Edward Sorin was elected superior-general of his order in 1868, and held this office for the rest of his life.

Edward Sorin was invited to attend the Provincial Council of Cincinnati of 1882 and the Plenary Council of American Bishops at Baltimore in 1884.

Edward Sorin became an American citizen in 1850, and was after that named to the government positions of local postmaster and superintendent of the roads.

Edward Sorin died a peaceful and painless death of Bright's Disease at the University of Notre Dame on the eve of All Saints' Day, October 31,1893.

Edward Sorin was buried in the Holy Cross Cemetery, as is tradition for all members of the Congregation.