Born:
Saint-Pierre-de-Bressieux (Isère), March 5, 1826.
Took the habit: N.-D. de l’Osier, October
31, 1849.
Vows: Brownsville, December 8, 1852 (N.
316).
Died: Brownsville, September 22, 1907.
Pierre Roudet was born in
Saint-Pierre-de-Bressieux, diocese of Grenoble, France, on March 5, 1826. He
began his novitiate as a coadjutor Brother in Notre-Dame de l’Osier on October
31, 1849. In his reports on the novices, Father Jacques Santoni, novice master,
wrote on May 12, 1850: “Roudet is alright from the point of view of conduct and
character. He is quite good at work. He is somewhat lacking in intelligence.
His assignment is the work within the house.” In June-August of the same year,
the novice master continued: “Roudet is right at the end of his novitiate. He
behaves well but seems to me to be lacking in intelligence. His character is
excellent. He is assigned to work in the rooms, the refectory and the parlour.”
Brother received his obedience for Texas and arrived in Brownsville on October 1, 1852. He was to spend almost all his life there. It was there that he made his final oblation on October 1, 1852. The only place where we find some details about him is in Missions OMI and in the book by Father Bernard Doyon. From 1856 to 1859 he supervised the work on the construction of the church of the Immaculate Conception, which was built according to the plans drawn up Father Kéralum. In 1858 he became gravely ill during an epidemic of yellow fever. Writing of his illness to Bishop de Mazenod on October 29, 1858, Father Gaudet speaks of the Brother as “our right-hand man, our factotum.” On June 15, 1861, he informed Father Fabre that the Brother had been “one month in bed because of an inflammation of the intestines and had several relapses.” He recovered after a novena to St. Joseph. In 1863-1864 he and the priests in Brownsville were prisoners of the American federal troops and, like them, he could not leave the town. In 1868 he escaped death together with Father Jean Morel when a hurricane knocked the church they were building. In a letter to Father Fabre on February 22, 1885, Father Pierre Parisot mentions Brother Roudet, “our factotum who can put his hand to anything in his department.” We know that he was still in Brownsville in 1894 but in Missions OMI of 1902, he is said to be “still a valiant worker in Eagle Pass”
He died in Brownsville on September 22, 1907, aged 81 years.
Yvon Beaudoin, o.m.i.
Sources and Bibliography
G. A.: note by Father Tempier on the “temporal
affairs” of Brother Roudet.
Missions
OMI, 1862-1907,
passim.
Doyon, Bernard, o.m.i., The
Cavalry of Christ on the Rio Grande, Milwaukee, 1956, passim.
