1893 – 1918 (October 11)
John Francis Dorgan was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on October 17, 1893, to John A. Dorgan, a machinist, and his wife, Mary Kerins. John studied at the local parochial school and at Lawrence High School, and entered the novitiate at Villanova, Pennsylvania in 1916. He was professed on June 24, 1917.
John died during the influenza epidemic on October 11, 1918 at the age of 25. Prior Provincial Nicholas Vasey celebrated the funeral Mass for John and fellow scholastic, Gilbert Klunk, another victim of the epidemic. At the time the entire campus was under quarantine, such that the funeral was held without music or chant, with no sermon and without the Office of the Dead, which was customary.
John Dorgan and Gilbert Klunk were buried in adjoining graves in the Villanova Community Cemetery.
