Whilst clearing out the small storeroom at the Corti House on the Lacor Hospital campus to make room for equipment belonging to certain surgical teams, we came across Mum’s old trunk. It was one of those dark green trunks with gold-plated brass locks, the sort people used to take with them in the 1950s when they were going away for a long time.
On the lid, one can still make out, slightly yellowed by time, a shield-shaped label in the colours of France and a large Statue of Liberty. At the top, in large letters, is the word Liberté, and just below that, French Line.
Liberté was the new name of the great German liner Europa, which, in the 1930s, on its maiden voyage, had won the famous Blue Ribon, awarded for the fastest transatlantic crossing. The Europa had taken just four days to reach New York. After the Second World War, the ship had been ceded to France as war reparations. It ended with the French Line, which renamed it Liberté and restored it to become one of the most elegant liners of the post-war era. On the label, one can still read: "Dr Lucille Teasdale, cabin 425, departure 8 September 1960". Lucille was then completing her specialisation in paediatric surgery. The surgical experience she had gained at Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal would have normally enabled her to gain entry to the most prestigious hospitals in the United States, but they had rejected her because they could not accept the idea of a female surgeon. Lucille had therefore chosen France to complete her training: first in Marseille, then in Paris. She had packed in her trunk her finest clothes, her medical books and all the cartons of cigarettes her father René had given her before she left home. She boarded the Liberté in New York, sailing to Le Havre on one of its final transatlantic voyages. The following year, the ship would indeed be taken out of service.
Just a few years earlier, the ship had served as the setting for the final scenes of the famous film Sabrina, in which a stunning Audrey Hepburn (playing Sabrina Fairchild) turned the head of the tycoon Larrabee, played by Humphrey Bogart, her grace transcending all class differences. The film’s final scene shows Audrey Hepburn reclining, beautiful and wistful, on a deck chair. It is sweet to imagine a similar scene with Lucille, she too dark-haired, slender, young and beautiful. In cabin 425, the trunk containing all her dreams. She imagined returning to Canada after a year.
Her story would be different. The trunk bears witness to this, for its lid bears two other labels: on one is written "Contini & C. Milano: 291 PISA"; on the other, "Gift from CELIM, Comitato Laici Italiani per le Missioni, to the St Mary’s Hospital". They are evidence that Lucille had met Piero and that she was leaving on a flight aboard a C-119 Fairchild, belonging to the Italian Air Force on a peacekeeping mission: bound for Entebbe, via Cairo, then Gulu, in northern Uganda.
She would never return. Her life would be dedicated to Piero and to Lacor Hospital, where she now rests with him. She had dreamed of becoming a surgeon for the poorest people in India. In a different and unexpected way, her dream came true.
