MAY 9
On this day in 1962, Brother David Tegart, stationed at St. Michael’s Mission, was found dead in his room around nine o’clock in the morning. The exact circumstances of his death are not all that clear.  Brother David was the first member of Blue Cloud Abbey to die.
      He was born in New Albany, Indiana on March 11, 1929. From 1950 until 1952, he attended college at St. Meinrad. Although he intended to enter religious life, he was drafted into the army and spent two years in Korea. In 1954 he entered the clerical novitiate at Blue Cloud a month after his brother, Brother Martin, had professed temporary vows. Brother David professed vows on September 8, 1955. In August of 1958, while still a professed Frater, he began another novitiate, this time as a Brother. He made perpetual vows a year later.
      Not able to keep up with the pace of studies in the clericate, he had been assigned to St. Michael’s Mission in 1957, where he assisted Brother Vital in the carpenter shop. Soon after his second novitiate and profession as a Brother, Brother David returned to St. Michael’s and the carpenter shop. He also drove a school bus and taught for a short time in the school. The children were attracted to him and he enjoyed being with them.
      Brother David was easygoing and imperturbable. He was methodically slow in his performance of some things, but when he was in a hurry, it paid to get out of his way. During his second novitiate -- the first in which Brother and Frater novices were together but separated from the rest of the community -- Brother David spent more time at recreation adjusting the high fidelity sound system he had built than playing records. When he got around to putting a record on the turntable, some novices left the recreation room. Not everyone shared his love for classical music played loudly. Although Brother David was comfortable in a crowd and liked being with people, he was also a solitary who appreciated privacy for the pursuit of his various personal interests.
      Brother David was a docile and happy monk, a model of stability in this community from which he was called to eternal life at the early age of thirty three.