The Loss of Brother Anselm in Indiana

July, 1845. Brother Anselm (Pierre Caillot) drowned in the Ohio River at Madison on July 12, 1845, and is buried in the town's Springhill Cemetery. The details of his death were reported to Father Moreau in a letter which Moreau circulated to the Community. The writer was Father Julian Delaune, the pastor at Anselm's school . The location of Brother Anselm's tomb was lost for a century, until Bob Newland of Indianapolis rediscovered it at the Springhill Cemetery in 2004. The stone has been restored.

My dear friend:

I have sad news for you. Sudden death has taken Brother Anselm away from us. He came to see me Saturday afternoon, July 12, to tell me he was going swimming. After hesitating a bit, I agreed to accompany him. He went into the water about seven or eight hundred feet away from me, in a place which did not seem the least bit dangerous. He went out more than five hundred feet without finding water deep enough for swimming. I was in water about three or four feet deep, a little distance off the bank. All of a sudden, while he was swimming, I noticed an expression of suffering on his face. He went down, but I thought he was doing it on purpose. He came up, then went down again, while uttering a cry for help. What a moment for me!

I was more than three hundred feet away from him and did not know how to swim. We were two miles from the city, with no houses nearby. He came up again and then sank. A moment later he lifted his arms and I saw him no more.

All aghast, I hastened to give him absolution. He had probably received it that morning for, as usual, he had gone to confession, and he went to Communion at least every Sunday. I ran to a cabin. A child told me that there was an old man not far away. I ran to him and brought him with me and pointed out from afar the place where the Brother disappeared. "He is lost for good," he told me. "Right there is a drop-off at least twenty feet deep, and the current all around is very swift. Anything I could do would be useless." I went home, got some good swimmers together, and procured boats and nets.

All our efforts proved useless. It was ten o'clock in the evening before he was found, five hours after he had drowned. An inquest was held by the civil authorities, and then we brought him back to the church at one-thirty yesterday morning. He was laid out in the basement chape1. Some of the Irish settlers watched beside the coffin until daybreak. I clothed him in his religious habit and he remained exposed in the Chapel until yesterday afternoon at four. Everyone was dismayed by the event. Thank God for having borne me up throughout this trial and its accompanying fatigue. Sleepless, and almost without having tasted food, broken-hearted and yet forced to stifle my grief in order to look after all the details, I suffered more yesterday than I ever thought I could.

At four in the afternoon we brought him to the church. The coffin was uncovered, and the calmness of his features made him look as though he were only asleep. Protestants and Catholics alike gathered to the number of more than a thousand. The choir sang the Vespers of the Dead. With painful effort I preached on Chapter Four of the Book of Wisdom, beginning with verse seven. ["But the just man, if he be overtaken by death, shall be in rest. For venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years ... He was taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his sou1."]

I had the thirteenth verse written in English on a black banner: "Being made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled a long time." After the Libera , the children from his school kissed his forehead; then the coffin was closed and covered with the funeral drape. The two schools led the funeral procession with the banner and the cross. The hearse followed, and then the people, two by two. I marched between the school children and the carriages. We crossed the city to the cemetery, which is a mile from here.

Your friend,

J. Delaune

St. Michael's Church in Madison, Indiana. Father Julian Delaune was pastor in 1845, and Brother Anselm taught school in the basement of the church.

 

The tomb of Brother Anselm in Madison, Indiana, the day it was rediscovered by Bob Newland in 2004.

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