A.
Alphonse Homer Mattlin was born in Toledo, Ohio, on August 22, 1912. He received his elementary education at St. Michael's School and attended Central Catholic High School and St. John's High School in Toledo, graduating from Central Catholic in June 1931. In August 1932 he entered the Jesuit novitiate at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Milford, Ohio, beginning the religious formation that shaped his priestly and academic career.
Mattlin's education combined Catholic schooling, university study, and Jesuit formation. After attending St. John's University in Toledo and continuing at Xavier University in Cincinnati, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Sacred Heart in Milford, Ohio, in August 1932. He transferred to West Baden College in Indiana in 1935 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola University Chicago in June of that year. In 1939 Loyola awarded him a Master of Arts degree for his thesis The Allegorical Interpretation of the Owl and the Nightingale, a study of the medieval English debate poem and its religious, secular, and personal interpretations.
Mattlin pursued a dual vocation as a Jesuit priest and an academic librarian. After his Jesuit formation and ordination, he worked in Catholic higher education and library administration. In 1947 he became director of the Loyola University Chicago Libraries, succeeding William T. Kane, S.J. During his twelve-year tenure, Loyola developed a multi-site library system coordinated through a central office. He remained director through 1959, when James C. Cox succeeded him. Mattlin then became director of libraries at the University of Detroit, serving for approximately fourteen months until his death in September 1960. His work at both universities joined library administration with the development of academic resources and support for teaching and research.
As director of the Loyola University Chicago Libraries from 1947 to 1959, he helped develop a multi-site library system coordinated through a central office.
He completed and published a substantial master's thesis on the allegorical interpretation of the medieval English poem The Owl and the Nightingale.
(Master's thesis by A. Homer Mattlin, S.J., submitted to L...)
1939He was a Catholic priest and a member of the Society of Jesus.
His academic study of The Owl and the Nightingale concluded that the poem's opposing voices could be understood as expressing the value of different human activities when rightly used, rather than presenting one side as wholly victorious.
Mattlin was a member of the Society of Jesus and served within its educational and priestly institutions. His professional association with Catholic higher education and libraries is documented through his leadership at Loyola University Chicago and the University of Detroit.
