Brother Alfred Brousseau F.S.C. 1907-1988

Alfred Brousseau was born on February 17, 1907, one of six children, in North Beach in San Francisco. His family moved to Napa, Suisun and back to San Francisco. On August 14, 1920, he entered the Juniorate at Martinez, and transferred to the Novitiate in the summer of 1923, receiving the robe on July 31, 1923. He entered the Scholasticate at St. Mary's College in the year 1924 (with about three years of High School training), from which he went teaching to Sacred Heart after the summer of 1926, at the age of 19. Assigned to St. Mary's College in August 1930 (without an AB degree) he both taught and studied diligently so that by 1937 he had earned a Ph. D. in Physics from the University of California.

He was appointed Principal of Sacred Heart High School in 1941 and then Provincal of the District of California in 1944. He returned to St. Mary's College in 1959. He has published 56 articles in journals of national circulation and has given 46 invited lectures to large audiences all over the United States at mathematics conferences for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics as well as for the California Mathematics Council. For 25 years he provided original contest problems for a state wide junior and senior high school competition. He was one of the founding fathers and managing editor and publisher of The Fibonacci Quarterly. He served as Treasurer and as President of the California Mathematics Council, Northern Section, and later as President of the entire State Council.

As a result of a donation by the California Mathematics Council to the building fund of NCM, his name is inscribed on a plaque at the new national headquarters outside Washington, D.C. Brother Alfred was featured in an article in TIME magazine, April 4,1969.

Among his many hobbies was that of photography. Brother Alfred Brousseau made a collection of 35mm color slides of Native Wildflowers of California which consisted of over 20,000 slides covering a a range of more than 2,000 species of flowers, all of which he diligently classified and recorded date and place of photographing. He also has a magnificent collection of California wilderness scenery, especially of the Sierra Nevada, as well as a collection of mushrooms, pine trees and sea weed. These collections can be viewed online here: CalPhotos: Plants