Dom Alban Baer, who served for more than twenty years as Portsmouth’s subprior and prior, died unexpectedly on March 13 in St. Elizabeth’s hospital in Belleville, Illinois. Father Alban had taken a leave of absence from Portsmouth in June of 1974 and was living in Belleville with an aged aunt who had brought him up after both his parents died in his infancy. He had been bothered during the winter with a lingering flu virus and went to the hospital for a thorough examination. While there he died in his sleep of a massive coronary attack. He was 58 years old.
Father Alban was a retiring, undemonstrative man, but like many shy people he had a delightful and incisive sense of humor to be shared with those who knew him well. As subprior and prior he was a model of regular monastic observance and a patient listener to all who came to him with their problems or complaints. He possessed in good measure the wisdom which understands that not many of these difficulties could be satisfactorily solved or rectified, but that much would be gained by sympathetic understanding. For example, he personally regretted the liturgical changes which meant that much of the monastic office would be recited or sung in the vernacular rather than in Latin. He had an excellent singing voice, had served as chantmaster to the community, and had studied Gregorian chant and the Latin liturgy closely. Yet he saw the gains to be had from a vernacular liturgy, and though he could never accept the changes on aesthetic grounds, he came to be very much at ease with the new rites; for his last few years at Portsmouth he served on weekends at a nearby parish whose people were clearly devoted to him.
Father Alban taught English at all levels in the school for thirty years and was head of the department for the last fifteen. Numerous graduates have returned to say that his English 5 course, preparing for the advanced placement exams, was the most rewarding of their career at Portsmouth. Others who chafed at the time under Father Alban’s steady drilling in vocabulary, writing assignments, and quizzes on Shakespeare and Shaw had to admit that the end result was worth it: an improved ability to read critically, a growing capacity to write clearly, and most importantly a new awareness of the riches to be discovered in the life of the intellect.
Father Alban’s consuming interest was books, and he read ravenously. He started collecting books while at Yale, where he took a BA and an MA in English Literature before entering the community at Portsmouth. He was librarian of the monastery for many years, and through his family’s generosity he was able to present to Portsmouth hundreds of fine volumes in literature, Church history, architecture and music. Through books he built a wide network of friends on two continents with whom he kept up a regular correspondence and whom he delighted to visit on vacations from Portsmouth.
Father Alban’s was the quiet, retiring life of a monk and a student. His passing was as little noted by much of Portsmouth’s larger family as his life had been. But to those closest to him and to his community, his loss was staggering.