Br. Dagobert Joseph

Hubert Fontaine was born at Nimigue, Holland, on December 18, 1831, the son of Hubert and Antoinette Fontaine. When he was twelve years old his family moved to Belgium where Hubert eventually entered military service and retired as a colonel. In 1863 he emigrated to the United States and fought in the Civil War. Following the war he was in New Orleans when at age thirty-nine he sought to enter the Novitiate at Carondelet, and did so in June of 1870. In November of that same year he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Dagobert Joseph. His first assignment was as watchman at the orphan institution at Bridgeport, Chicago. In 1872 he was assigned to De La Salle in Chicago and in 1873 at St. Joseph, Missouri, and then to St. John's in Prairie du Chien and then to Memphis in 1878. He returned to St. Joe in 1880 and to St. Patrick's in 1883 and returned to Christian Brothers Academy in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1884 where he remained until his death in 1888 from a paralytic stroke. He served as a working Brother all of his life, as watchman, prefect and econome wherever he was assigned. He was fifty-seven years old at the time of his death, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for eighteen years.