Dad’s cousin. The first of the seven children of Edward O’Donnell, Dad’s father’s younger brother (1875-1939) and Ella Lloyd O’Donnell. The family lived in the O’Donnell Flats, too.
Fr. Edward–not Edward the father–attended Marquette High School and University and was ordained in 1942. He did parish work in what was then the British Honduras, now Belize, then served as an administrator at St. John’s University in Belize City. In 1948, at the age of 39, he was appointed president of Marquette University, serving for 14 years, until 1962. He stayed at Marquette for another ten years as chancellor before returning to St. John’s. He left that post because of poor health and came back to Milwaukee, where he died at Marquette’s Jesuit Residence.
