James Leo West was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 5, 1925. He attended St. Francis Xavier School in La Grange, Illinois, for his elementary education and graduated with honors from Fenwick High School in Oak Park in 1943. After a year of studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, he fulfilled his military service as a topographic draftsman in the United States Army Engineer Corps in both the European and Asian theaters of World War II. In 1946, he resumed his college studies, first at the University of Illinois in Chicago and then at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in history. He then entered the newly dedicated Dominican novitiate at St. Peter Martyr Priory in Winona, Minnesota. The first novice to be vested with the habit in Winona, he was assigned Peter Martyr as a religious name.

After first profession on September 30, 1950, philosophical studies followed at the Dominican House of Studies in River Forest, Illinois, and theological courses at the Dominican House of Studies in Dubuque, Iowa, until September 1954, when Brother Peter Martyr was sent to the College of St. Albert in Oakland, California, to complete hi theological training along with a number of student brothers from St. Albert's Province then sent to study in Holy Name Province. On June 10, 1955, he was ordained a priest in San Francisco's Cathedral of St. Mary.

Father West's first assignment after his return to the Midwest in 1957 was to teach theology at Rosary College while residing at St. Vincent Ferrer Priory in River Forest, Illinois. In September 1964, he was elected Prior of the novitiate community in Winona. At the end of his term of office in 1967, he joined the theology and philosophy department at St. Edward 's University in Austin, Texas, where he taught until 1969 when he moved to St. Anthony of Padua Priory in New Orleans, Louisiana, while teaching at St. Mary's Dominican College and providing chaplaincy service at St. Mary's Dominican High School.

In the fall of 1972, Father West returned to the Chicago area with an assignment to teach religion at Fenwick High School with residence at St. Dominic-St. Thomas Priory in River Forest. In 1973, he began to change his ministerial concentration from teaching to health care service with an associate chaplaincy at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois. His

growing interest in hospital ministry led him to a continuing education program that centered on clinical pastoral training at Foster-McGaw-Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, and eventual appointment there as a full staff chaplain in 1975. Certification by the United States Catholic Conference Board of Examiner as a General Health Chaplain Supervisor followed in 1978 and expanded Father West's ministry to include training deacon interns in the Chicago Archdiocesan Deaconate program and special chaplaincy service for the Madden Mental Health Center in Chicago.

Although frequently weakened by a serious diabetic condition, Father West continued to maintain a full work schedule until a severe angina attack in early December 1979, sent him as an emergency patient to Oak Park Hospital in Oak Park, Illinois. While recuperating in the hospital's cardiac care unit, he suffered a second massive heart attack and died suddenly on December 18. Following liturgical service at St. Dominic-St. Thomas Priory in River Forest, he was buried in the community plot in All Saints Cemetery. Des Plaines, Illinois, on December 21.