Br. Savinian

Alexander McGavock was born in Cairmeastle, Ireland, and emigrated to the United States. At age twenty-nine he sought admission to religious life at the Novitiate of the Christian Brothers at Cerre Street in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1855. There he received the habit of the Brothers and the religious name of Brother Savinian. His first teaching assignment took him to St. Mary's Academy in New Orleans. He was then assigned to Ellicott Mill, Maryland, and then to Christian Brothers College in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1867 he returned to the south to teach at the College in Pass Christian, Mississippi. There Brother Savinian contracted yellow fever and died at age forty-one, having been a De La Salle Christian Brother for twelve years.