Augustinian Father Daniel J. Hartigan, 99, died Feb. 17. He was the oldest Augustinian friar in the United States and Canada.

Born in Boston, he graduated from trade school in 1934 and worked for two years as a printer before entering Augustinian formation in 1936.

He professed temporary vows in 1938 and permanent in 1941, and he was ordained a priest in 1945.

He was assigned in 1946 to St. Rita High School as a teacher. When Mendel Catholic High School opened in 1951, Father Hartigan was among its original faculty.

In 1960 he was transferred to Tolentine College, Olympia Fields, as a teacher and counselor, and at the same time he was named superintendent of schools for the Augustinian Secondary School system. From 1963 to 1968, while continuing to serve as superintendent, Father Hartigan was principal of Mendel. He served as prior of Mendel Monastery from 1968 to 1974 and he was inducted into the Mendel Hall of Fame in 2001.

Father Hartigan became a certified alcoholism counselor and a psychologist in Illinois. Beginning in 1974 he was employed by the City of Chicago as a clinical psychologist, and from 1976 to 1993 as a psychologist and director of the city’s Mid-South Mental Health Center. He resided at Mendel Monastery until 1988, then at St. Rita Monastery.

He retired from the Bureau of Mental Health in 1993 and resided at St. Clare of Montefalco Parish, where he also was prior (1993-2002). He moved in 2002 to St. Monica Monastery and was named prior at St. Monica in 2006. He served in that office until 2010.

He then was assigned briefly to St. Nicholas of Tolentine Monastery, Olympia Fields. When Blessed Stephen Bellesini Friary was established at Franciscan Village, Lemont, in July, 2010, Father Hartigan was assigned there.

In 2014, Blessed Stephen Bellesini Friary moved to Indiana, but Father Hartigan chose to go to Mercy Circle, a health care facility on Chicago’s South Side, to be nearer to his close friends.