One photograph records a moment in time. Four hundred photographs tell a story. Individually, they are freeze frames of institutional life, of students' transitions from adolescence to manhood. Collectively, they chronicle the crucible that was St. Henry's Preparatory Seminary: its spirit, its culture and traditions, its truths....

Daniel Franklin writes, "In these pages, I celebrate St. Henry's and its sons: the real and imagined hardships we suffered shoulder to shoulder, the goals we accomplished side by side, the brotherhood we shared and cherish."

In 1926, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate opened St. Henry’s Preparatory Seminary at the request of Bishop Henry Althoff of the Diocese of Belleville, Illinois. The seminary welcomed 14 students on October 4 of that year — the first of more than 2,800 students over six decades. The author graduated from St. Henry's Preparatory Seminary in 1966.