Please don’t let the fancy title of this story make you nervous. Basically, epistolary apostolate means “the letter-writing apostle.”

Brother Frank, I’m learning, loved to write letters.

If you read The Mulligan Cousins a few weeks back, you’ve already “met” Brother Frank. He was Mom’s cousin by marriage (her aunt Marcella’s marriage, that is), as his birth mom, Mary, passed away when he was just five.

Their home on Central Avenue in New Haven still looks great:

Here is a wonderful tribute sent to me by archivists affiliated with the Christian Brothers, the religious order where Brother Frank found his home.

An Appreciation by Brother Eugene Lappin

Our Founder, Saint John Baptist de La Salle, in one of his meditations paraphrased Saint Ambrose: What happiness is in store for a Brother of the Christian Schools when he shall see a large number of his students in possession of eternal life, thanks to him, through the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

How true of Brother Francis Mulligan who lived 54 years as a Brother of the Christian Schools, educating young men and women. Having died one day shy of his 75th birthday, Frank was a Brother for more than two-thirds of his life. Many knew Frank the veteran; the novice and student Brother; the opera lover and skilled pianist; the organizer in Washington of the “Non Star Athletes”; the teacher, activity moderator, and alumni organizer; the hospitality coordinator; the peripatetic world traveler; the letter writer extraordinaire, and the retiree.

But few knew Bobbie Mulligan, a boy from New Haven, Connecticut, whose musically talented mother, Mary, died when she was five; who worked by day in a meat-packing plant with his father, John, and older brother, Jack, during the Depression; who finished high school at night; and who was chosen for roles in local productions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado and HMS Pinafore, a selection of that inspired his life-long love of Gilbert and Sullivan, the piano, and opera.

Nor did any of us really know Robert Mulligan, the teen-age soldier trained by the Army Air Corps as a radio operator for dozens of flights “over the hump” into Burma. A half century later, Frank showed with pride his old Army photo with uniform, cap, and insignia. Decades later, he could still paraphrase Kipling:

“Now in Burma’s sunny clime, where I used to spend my time, I served the Air Corps in my prime.”

So, New Haven, opera, the Corps, degrees in French, and students, his students … all students were Frank’s world. As Brother Peter Bonventre remarked, Frank was extraordinarily devoted to his students.

At his 50th jubilee celebration in June 1997, Frank said that his war experience and the suggestion of an Australian Redemptorist priest prompted his vocation, but his parents, John and Mary, and brother, Jack, most likely fostered in Frank his faith that led him to religious life. At the Barrytown Novitiate, Frank met another World War II veteran, Joseph (Brother William) Clapham, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. Frank used to joke, referring to Bill’s nearly half-century at La Salle Military Academy, Oakdale, “Willy took the vow of stability, whereas I” – he’d say smiling – “always preferred a more moving career!”

And move he did!

In 54 years, Frank was in 22 different places, including nine schools in New York or New England, two in Canada, and one each in Louisiana, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, not to mention Bethlehem University in the Holy Land. Frank toiled diligently in the classroom, where he usually taught French and religion, striving to hold the attention of 30 restive teenagers. In truth, however, he really preferred extra curriculars like directing a Gilbert and Sullivan show in Washington or Newport; weightlifting clubs in Providence and New York, or alumni organizations in Brooklyn, Saint Louis, and Toronto.

Frank overcame many challenges. With his shy smile, word puns, and quiet demeanor, Frank succeeded in reaching young men and women who rarely received much attention from others. In fact, he spent his last 15 active years with the marginalized at Saint Gabriel Hall for troubled youth in Pennsylvania; at a Brothers’ school in New Orleans for the academically challenged and at Narragansett, Rhode Island, where he, the boys of Ocean Tides and several Ocean Tides staff members established and maintained excellent rapport.

Frank was skilled in organizing alumni. By frequent letters, especially at Christmas, personal contacts, and contant efforts over nine years (1968-1977), he organized the Bishop Loughline High School graduates, many of whom he had taught, advised, or directed years before. He brought this much-appreciated talent to Brothers’ high schools in Saint Louis (1977-1979) and Toronto (1982-1985). Typically, whenever he finished his work, he moved on.

He was, after all, peripatetic!

Frank’s writing to students can be called his “epistolary apostolate.” For decades he mailed out what he teasingly called his “world-famous annual newsletter.” In it he wrote about dozens of alums that he had heard from, read about, or visited. His letters found alumni on every continent and in almost every profession. And how he loved to visit them in person! He crisscrossed this country several times, stopping to see alums from east to west and from north to south.

Frank’s last days were prayerful and inspirational. When he was semi-conscious at South Country Hospital, he repeatedly recited the Our Father and the Hail Mary. Then he lapsed into a coma. From it he passed into the hands of God and, no doubt, as Saint La Salle wrote, among “a large number of his pupils in possession of eternal life thanks to him and the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Brother Frank’s eulogy included the above, plus the following personal insight:

Here are a few letters that Frank had in his room when he died: one from a friend, now separated from his wife, who purchased two raffle tickets; one from a former Loughlin coach promising prayers; one from the young man on death row; one from a history professor in Pennsylvania; one from a La Salle Academy Floridian (who also asked for a $100 raffle ticket); one from a Loughlin ’62 grad; one from a certain “Vince the Prince”; and one that arrived from Australia the day of Frank’s death from a young man that he taught and helped at a Brothers’ school in New Orleans. In part, this young man says, “Thank you for the great educational lessons, when I needed them most.” Each letter, in fact, testifies to the friendship between Frank and the writer. 

Transportation for Frank’s travels was often courtesy of his family and contacts, although his brother, Jack, once wrote back a succinct “no” to a request by postcard for a car. Then there was the time that Frank went to see a former student from La Salle, Oakdale: John Sununu, Governor of New Hampshire. Lending Frank his car, Governor Sununu got it back the next day … with a smashed fender. (Frank backed it into the governor’s garage so that the fender was not visible.) Another time, Frank went to see Cabinet Member Sununu in the White House, but all he got that time was a private tour for himself and his group of boys from St. Gabriel Hall.

Brother Frank was laid to rest in the Christian Brothers Cemetery on the grounds of the Christian Brothers Center in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

Young people need good teachers, like visible angels.
~ Saint John Baptist de La Salle

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