He was born on March 6, 1930, to Joseph Poole and his wife Beatrice Smith, and was baptized in his parish church of St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood, California. He attended elementary school at Rio Vista Elementary School, then transferred to St. Charles Borromeo School. He entered Los Angeles College, the precursor to Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary in 1942.

Father Poole entered the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) on Oct. 7, 1947, and continued his philosophical and theological studies for ordination at St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 27, 1956. He earned a master’s degree from Saint Louis University in 1958, with a major in Spanish literature. In 1961, he earned a doctorate in U.S. and Mexican history from Saint Louis University.

As he was completing his doctoral studies, Father Poole was planning on researching slaveholding in Catholic Missouri. However, God intervened. Jesuit Father John Bannon, the director of the history department, was presented with some rare documents from Latin America that included documents from the Third Council of 1585 and presented Father Poole with a project. He described what happened next:

“The next time I walked into (Father) Bannon’s office, my life took a total reversal. I got working on it and became fascinated with the whole thing. But actually I had had only one graduate course in Latin American history, and that was a survey. Other than that, I was self taught.”

From these beginnings flowed an impressive contribution to the field of Catholicism in colonial Latin America, as well as his works on the history of the Congregation of the Mission and the U.S. Catholic Church. Included in his life’s work were 14 books, 23 publications in anthologies and encyclopedias, 62 journal articles, as well as some unpublished studies on Vincentian themes and numerous book reviews.

Father Poole also was a teacher, academic dean and seminary rector. His teaching career included Cardinal Glennon College in St. Louis, St. Mary’s of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville, and St. John’s Seminary College in Camarillo, California. In his leisure, he spent time making and repairing clocks of all sorts. After he had left St. Mary of the Barrens in 1971, students would comment that “Father Poole needs to come back to the Barrens to fix the clock on the A Building!”

During his retirement, Father Poole continued to be active as a scholar and mentor. He encouraged other confreres to take up the critical history of the Congregation of the Mission. He supported his colleagues in both the American Catholic Historical Association and other professional organizations to continue the study the Church’s earliest mission activity in Latin America and its impact upon the people.

Burial was in the Vincentian Community Cemetery in Perryville.