Very Reverend John Jordan
Dillon
JOHN JORDAN DILLON
FRANKLIN SCHOOL
DERBY HIGH SCHOOL
FOURTH PRESIDENT
PROVIDENCE COLLEGE
1936-1944
The Reverend John Jordan Dillon, fourth president of
Providence College, was born in Derby on September 2, 1898.
He was the second of five children of David J.
and Mary J. (Houlihan) Dillon. The Chapel Street native received
his early education at Franklin School and was a graduate of Derby High
School. He worked at the R. N. Bassett company in Shelton for several
years before serving on a submarine tender in the navy during World War
I.
His journey to the presidency of Providence actually
started when he attended a mission conducted at St. Mary's Church by
members of the Dominican order. That provided the inspiration for him to
join the Dominican order and become a priest.
He received an undergraduate degree from Providence
College (1924) and a master of arts (M.A.)
degree from The Catholic University of America and lectorate in sacred
theology (S.T.Lr.) from Immaculate Conception College in Washington,
D.C. He was ordained a priest on June 17, 1929 at the National
Shrine of the Blessed Virgin in Washington, D.C. He celebrated his first
high mass as a priest at St. Mary's in Derby which was also the church
where he was baptized and confirmed. He was a frequent visitor to his
native Derby throughout his life and often preached at St. Mary's while
here. "
Ten years after leaving PC,
Father Dillon returned as a philosophy professor and soon also became an
assistant dean. On September 11, 1936, the Corporation elected John
Jordan Dillon, O.P. as Corporation treasurer and confirmed the
appointment of PC’s first alumnus president.
Father Dillon was stricken while visiting his sister who lived on
Chapel Street on Thanksgiving Day, 1944. Taken to St. Raphael's hospital
in New Haven, he died on December 1, 1944. An article in the Evening
Sentinel following his death described him as being "well known and very
popular in his native city.
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