He was born in Rumford on Feb.9, 1929, to Raoul and Marie (LeBlanc) Blouin. The end came after a five-year struggle with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s) disease.
Brother Blouin began his religious life in August 1942, upon joining the Brothers’ high school formation center in Alfred. He pronounced first vows on completing his novitiate year in 1947, and perpetual vows in 1952.
His long career as a very successful educator began in 1950, in Fall River, Massachusetts. In 1954, he was assigned to Mt. Assumption Institute in Plattsburgh, New York, becoming its principal in 1963, a position held until he was named province superior in 1970, with headquarters in Alfred. In 1978, he became the third president of Walsh College (now University) in Canton, Ohio. Upon retiring from that position in 1993, he returned to Maine to serve as Portland Diocesan vicar for religious and in 1994, was appointed for a second term as provincial superior. Upon completing this six-year term, he remained in Maine, engaged with York County Shelter housed on the Brother’s Alfred campus.
In 2004, he came out of semi-retirement to direct the establishment of Kisubi Brothers University (KBU) in Uganda. His life becoming complicated with health issues (later diagnosed as ALS), he returned to Alfred to continue fulltime several writing projects. In December 2015, he became a resident of St. Andre Health Care Facility in Biddeford. At Thanksgiving time, he expressed his gratitude for the help and support he received from the staff of St. Andre’s. Compassus Hospice also offered some much appreciated assistance and consolation.
He was preceded by his brothers, Louis and Jean Paul, and sister Alice Theriault. He will be greatly missed by his grateful confreres among the Brothers of Christian Instruction in the United States, Canada and Uganda and his surviving sisters, Rita Brodeur, and Gloria Bernard of Maine, and Raymonde of Rhode Island, and by many nieces and nephews.
At his request, Brother Francis’s body was given to the College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Anatomical Donor Program of the Univeristy of New England, Biddeford. A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30, at the Notre Dame Chapel on the Brother’s campus in Alfred. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the KBU’s Blouin Scholarship Program c/o Br. Daniel Caron, P.O. Box 159, Alfred, ME 04002.
A more extended biography can be accessed at the Brothers’ Facebook page Brothers of Christian Instruction, Notre Dame Province, USA and at blackfuneralhomes.com.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.