John Stintzi

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John Baptist Stintzi, SM was a Marianist brother, educator, and the second president of the University of Dayton. He was born on November 10, 1821, in Sainte-Croix-en-Plaine, Alsace, France, and died on February 7, 1900, in Dayton, Ohio.

Stintzi joined the Marianists in 1837 at Ebersmunster Abbey, at about age 16. He made his first vows in 1839 and spent several years teaching in Alsace. In 1849 he was sent to the United States to help start a Marianist school near Cincinnati, but delays and misunderstandings kept the project from opening. He then taught at Holy Trinity School for five years.

Along with three other Marianists, Stintzi was among the first to come to the Americas. In spring 1854 he was offered the leadership of St. Aloysius Orphan Asylum in Cincinnati, while remaining at Holy Trinity for a time. Because promised reinforcements did not come, he eventually left Holy Trinity to work full-time at St. Aloysius. The mission there did not succeed as hoped, and by late 1855 the group was withdrawn.

Stintzi was then sent to Louisville, Ohio, where a Marianist boarding school had opened. In early 1856, after a visit by the Bishop of Cleveland, he was invited to Cleveland and placed in charge of St. Patrick’s School, a parochial primary school. It was the first English-language Marianist school, and it quickly earned him a reputation for strong leadership despite overcrowded classrooms and limited resources. The Cleveland Superintendent of Schools even sought his advice on education.

After one year at St. Patrick’s, Stintzi was assigned to reopen St. Mary’s Institute, which had burned in 1855. He stayed there for three years and then returned to St. Patrick’s in 1860. He also served as the University of Dayton’s second president from 1857 to 1860.