In the last half of the 1950s, the halls of Boston College High School on Morrissey Blvd. in Dorchester were dominated by the black-robed presence of close to 50 members of the Society of Jesus serving as teachers and administrators, every one of them intent on instilling in their teenage students the values of the Jesuits’ centuries-old approach to living and learning and serving others.

During academic hours, the classrooms featured earnestness and attentiveness, but as would be the case in any school at any level, there were occasions when personalities upended the stillness. In my memory, three of the most prominent on the faculty side were the Jesuit fathers Robert “Mon Pere” Sheridan, when he was exulting over a turn of phrase en francais, John W. Chapman, when he was edging into ecstasy over Odysseus’s many wiles, and a Jesuit-in-training, William C. Russell, when he was just being good guy Bill Russell inside and outside the teaching rooms to his students in French and Latin and to his faculty colleagues.

This recollection of a time long past was provoked by a short (112 words) matter-of-fact report in agate type in last Saturday’s Boston Globe’s recording the death of “Russell, Rev. William Clark SJ” on Tues., Feb. 11, at age 92 and the time of his funeral, which was set for this past Monday at the Jesuits’ Campion Center in Weston, Mass.

As has been The Globe’s wont for decades now, this edition also featured lengthy obituaries of individuals of some renown in faraway places – a 93-year-old concert pianist from Florence, Italy; a governor of Arkansas who had been caught up in scandal in the 1990s; a fellow from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who made posters for rock concerts in the ‘60s and ‘70s – that filled the next page over.

Father Bill Russell lived and taught and ministered and administered widely and successfully much closer to Boston. I am indebted to the author of an appreciation of him that was published last week by the Jesuits USA East Province that noted the following:

• He was born in Winthrop, MA on June 10, 1932, one of six children. During his freshman year at Holy Cross College, he applied to the Society of Jesus in 1951 and after a year brushing up his Latin and Greek at St. Philip Neri in Haverhill, MA, he spent his novitiate and juniorate years at Shadowbrook, Lenox, MA. He was ordained to the priesthood in Weston by Cardinal Richard Cushing in 1965 and pronounced his final vows at BC High in 1972.

He often told the story of his namesake father launched him beyond the family’s orbit on his first day at Holy Cross College: “He was the one who helped me carry my footlocker up four flights of stairs, and who sat on the edge of my bed and told me how proud he was to have his son in college and how he knew that I would work hard at my studies because he would be spending 1/5 of his income on 1/8 of his family, but that I was worth every penny.”

• He served as superior at many Jesuit communities and led a number of the Society’s educational institutions – Boston College High School (1971-73); the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, CA (1973-76); Cheverus High School in Portland, MA (1977-80); Loyola House, Boston (1986-88); and Patrick House, Kingston, Jamaica (2001-2007). Alongside these assignments, Bill worked in advancement and admissions. Early on, Bill’s charm and shrewdness enabled him to provide wise counsel to other Jesuit leaders and befriend them in their sometime isolating work.

• Revered as a friend by many, universally admired as a priest and administrator, and welcomed wherever he went, he never entirely shook off yearnings for the monastic life, especially the most austere, the Trappists and the Carthusians. He even became a Trappist postulant and novice in 1969-70, only to be told by Abbott Thomas Keating, “You are a Jesuit!” Bill concluded the same, coming away with the mild irony and unruffled calm that marked his Jesuit ministry. … Though Bill always maintained this quiet joy and calm, his ministry in the Jesuits was anything but monastic. He provided shrewd and wise counsel to others, with easy and unstrained relationships with those around him, Jesuit or not.

• He had a great love for France. In the early 1960s, he was assigned, much to his surprise, to the Jesuit school at Vals in the southwest of France. For his theology, he enrolled in the famous Jesuit School of Theology at Lyon (1962-66). Making good use of his mastery of French, he earned an M.A. in Romance Languages at Harvard in 1962. His enrollment a bit later in the Harvard doctoral program in French literature (1967-69) came to an end when the author who was to be the subject of his dissertation was unwilling to cooperate.

• After his six-year leadership in Jamaica (2001-07), Bill’s ministry was chiefly carried out at Boston College, mostly in the Jesuit community (2007-2016). In 2017, congestive heart problems began to slow him down, and he moved to Campion Health Center in Weston, MA. Though the Jesuit catalogs listed him “praying for the Church and the Society, Bill did much more – welcoming newcomers, brightening everyone’s days, and remaining cordial and unruffled. In his last two weeks, Bill grew weaker and weaker until early in the morning of February 11, 2025, he quietly passed away.