LACON — The Rev. Kevin Gorman, O.S.B., monk and priest of St. Bede Abbey, died in his 87th year after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease on Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012, at St. Joseph’s Nursing Home in Lacon, where he had been a resident for almost three years. He had just returned the previous day from a brief stay at St. Margaret’s Hospital in Spring Valley.

Father Kevin was born at Monee on Jan. 3, 1926, the son of John E. Gorman and Lucinda Woeltje Gorman and baptized as Dale Francis Gorman. After six years at a local country school and the completion of seventh and eighth grades in a single year at Our Lady Academy in Manteno, he followed his older brother, Monroe, to St. Bede Academy in the fall of 1938 and there completed high school and two years of college in the next six years.

In 1944 he entered the monastic community of St. Bede Abbey, making his novitiate at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., and professing vows on June 14, 1945. He then completed his college studies at St. Benedict’s College in Atchison, Kan., with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and mathematics, followed by four years of theological studies at St. Bede and ordination to the priesthood on May 13, 1951.