John T. Boland was born on June 13, 1867 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the oldest of five children. His parents, James Joseph Boland and Catherine Frawley Boland, immigrated to Cincinnati from Limerick, Ireland, and married in 1866. John Boland began studying for the priesthood at the University of Notre Dame in 1884. He was ordained on July 31, 1892, and said his first mass at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in Cincinnati.
Father Boland remained at Notre Dame following his ordination, and served as a Prefect of Discipline (hall rector). In 1899 he was sent to take over the administration of St. Edward's College (now known as St. Edward's University) in Austin, Texas. In 1907, he resigned as president of St. Edward's, citing health concerns, and was transferred to Holy Cross College in New Orleans, Louisiana. His ill health continued, and Father Boland was advised by doctors to move to a cooler climate. In 1909 he briefly served as the pastor of St. Bernard's Church in Watertown, Wisconsin, before returning to St. Edward's College to resume the presidency from 1909 to 1914. From 1914 to 1919, he served as the president of the University of Portland (a college run by the Holy Cross in Portland, Oregon); his health problems continued during this period.
Father Boland returned to Notre Dame upon leaving Portland, and he served as the secretary of the Univeristy for the next five years. In August of 1924, his health forced him to travel to a Holy Cross sanatorium in Deming, New Mexico. The journey took its toll on his fragile health, and he passed away less than a month later, on September 28, 1924. He was buried on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
Father Boland's niece, Mary Blanche Boland, was born April 8, 1916 in Cairo, Illinois, the daughter of James Boland and his wife Blanche (Barrett) Boland. She graduated from the College of St. Francis (now known as the University of St. Francis) in Joliet, Illinois, in 1937, and received a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1942. Mary Blanche never married, and was employed as a public school librarian in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was greatly interested in family history, and wrote a biographical study of her uncle, Father John Boland. Mary Blanche Boland spent several years performing archival research at the Provincial Archives of the Congregation of Holy Cross in Notre Dame, Indiana, and at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas. She attended several conferences of the Holy Cross History Association, and presented her research on Father Boland at the 1986 conference in Austin, Texas. She passed away in Cincinnati on June 21, 2009.
From the guide to the Boland family papers, 1906-1988, (University of Dayton)
