Submitted by: Dan Rich

Rev. Frederick M. Gassensmith CSC

May 24, 1886 – Dec. 9, 1963

South Bend Tribune 12/9/1963

Rev. Frederick M. Gassensmith, CSC, 77, professor of mathematics and hall rector at the University of Notre Dame, died this morning in the Students’ Infirmary on the campus. Born on May 24, 1886 in Odell, Ill., he entered the Holy Cross seminary on the campus in 1906; entered the novitiate of the Holy Cross Fathers on the campus in 1909 and made his final professional vows there in 1911. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 26, 1914. Father Gassensmith received his degree in sacred theology in 1914 from Catholic University of America, Washington DC and a bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame in 1917. He returned to Catholic University to receive a master’s degree in mathematics in 1925.

From 1914 to 1918 he was assigned to St. Joseph Church in South Bend as assistant pastor; fron 1918 to 1919, he was at the University of Portland, Ore., and from 1919 to 1924, he was mathematics instructor at Notre Dame. He has been teaching at Notre Dames continuously from the fall of 1925  until last fall with the exception of two years, 1935 to 1937, when he taught at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Tex.

Funerals services will be held in Sacred Heart Church at Notre Dame at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Friends may call at Corby Hall chapel after 1 p.m. Tuesday. The office of the dead will be reciter at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the church.

He is survived by six brothers and four sisters. They are Raymond, Norbert and Cyril, all of South Bend; Arthur and Edward of Joliet, Ill.; Clarence of Odell, Ill.; Mrs James F. Murphy, Jerseyville, Ill.; Mrs. Arthur Pellouchoud, Joliet, Ill., Sister M. Frederick, OP, Mendota, Ill, and Sister M. Louis Bertrand, OP, Springfield, Ill.