On February 17, 1968, Brother Alexius Margolis died at St Ann's Hospital, Watertown. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut on May 2, 1891. When he was a child playing in the front yard of his home, he used to wave at Teddy Roosevelt who walked by on his way to Yale University where he was president. Br Alex was baptized at the age of 17. It was only after his death that we learned he was a convert from Judaism. He completed two years of high school and then entered St Vincent's Hospital Training School for Nurses in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Br Alex renewed his Connecticut nursing license yearly, almost up to the time of his death. In 1915 and again in 1917 he was a postulant with the Alexian Brothers in Chicago. While working as a nurse at St Mary's Mercy Hospital in Gary, Indiana in 1917, he heard from a friend back east who had entered ST Anselm's Abbey, Manchester, New Hampshire. John Margolis began thinking about a Benedictine vocation for himself. He applied to St Meinrad Archabbey and was accepted as a Brother candidate. He entered the novitiate on November 12, 1918 and professed simple vow on November 13, 1919. He made perpetual profession on the same day years later.

Brother Alex served as an infirmarian at St Meinrad and worked in the vineyard, the orchard and the sawmill. He came to Blue Cloud for two months in 1950 and returned for good in 1951. He was our laundryman and infirmarian.

Often Br Alex's two professions clashed. We couldn't receive much medical attention from him on Monday mornings when the dirty laundry had to be sorted and washed. When Br Sebastian Goldade was helping tar the roof of the new barn, he spilled a bucket of tar all over himself and then fell from the roof. When he was carried to the laundryman/infirmarian on that Monday morning, Br Alex said, "Take him out of here. I don't want that tar getting on the laundry."

Br Alex had a liking for foreign languages. He attended Divine Offices in Latin with the Fathers and Fraters instead of joining the Brothers in their oratory for English Office. He knew French and prided himself on having translated a scholarly work for one of the Fathers at St Meinrad's. When he entered St Meinrad's German was the language of most of the Brothers. He learned it, and on one of his trips home to Connecticut, he met a German man in a train station. Another traveler, overhearing their conversation in German, interrupted them and said to Br Alex, "I can tell exactly where you come from in Germany." In his later years, Br Alex taught himself Italian.

At Blue Cloud he impressed us as someone who was growing old gracefully in monastic life. In 1942, however, he had experience grave doubts about his monastic vocation and had fled the monastery for a time.

Br Alex was imbued with delightful eccentricities which endeared him to the community. In the community reading room he found great pleasure in reading aloud advertisements from newspapers and magazines. "Yes, We Have No Bananas" was his favorite song and he hummed or sang it a good deal of the time. One evening while he and a confrere were waiting in chapel for the monks to assemble for Compline, Br Alex whistled "Yes, We Have No Bananas." For a short time he was in charge of the vestry. When a monk asked for the one remaining pair of shorts in his size, Br Alex said, "You can't have them. If I give them to you, there will be nothing left for the shelf." As infirmarian, it seemed that he had every pill in the bottle counted.

During the last few years of his life he was afflicted with diabetes and a heart condition. No longer able to work in the laundry, he was assigned to Br Felix in the mailing department of the appeal office. Br Alex learned to type in his 70s. While standing in statio, he practiced his typing on an imaginary keyboard.

Eventually he stopped working and enjoyed total retirement. He stayed in his room and read a lot. Br Rene Wilson, his successor as infirmarian, gave him a 900 page nursing textbook to read. Br Alex did not confine his reading to technical books, though. When he read a collection of short stories by J D Salinger, his comment was: "There are some awful words in this book, but I just ump right over them and keep going."

Br Alex was a lovable little man. He is remembered with the fondest of memories. No one who knew him, can forget him.