But as far as I know, she died already unconscious, with hospital personnel as her only company.
* * *
—
LATER THAT DAY, a cable went from Ottawa to Ambassador Bower.
TO: THE CANADIAN AMBASSADOR,
BUENOS AIRES
JULY 25, 1959
FOR BOWER CAROL BLACKSTOCK DIED THIS MORNING.
BROWN
Clearly, Assistant Deputy Minister Leslie Brown was on top of the situation. He must have been informed of Carol’s death by someone other than George—otherwise, he would have known his message was redundant. George, in fact, sent the following cable on the same day.
TO: CANADIAN AMBASSADOR,
BUENOS AIRES
JULY 25, 1959
CAROL DIED THIS MORNING AT NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE STOP CAUSE STILL UNKNOWN STOP WILL ADVISE PLANS SOON.
BLACKSTOCK
George’s message differed from Brown’s only by adding pointedly “cause still unknown.”
Many years later, Dr. Bernard Graham, one of the doctors who treated Carol in Montreal, told Julie and me that her medical team was deeply puzzled by her death. As physicians at a research and teaching hospital, the doctors regarded her case as a professional challenge. According to Dr. Graham, an MNI neurologist and the institute’s registrar, they convened a post-mortem round-table discussion and did some brainstorming.
After they had run through the range of possible reasons for her death, one of the doctors looked at his colleagues and said, “This is the sort of thing that happens with heavy-metal poisoning.” With that stroke of intuition, the pieces began coming together—and with hindsight, her strange combination of symptoms started making sense.
The doctors immediately conducted a careful and detailed physical examination of the body. Their post-mortem findings supported their suspicion. As obligated by law, they called in the coroner, and Carol Blackstock’s body was transferred to the Montreal city morgue for an autopsy.
8
BURIAL
TWENTY YEARS LATER, Julie and I would learn how our mother’s parents found out about her death.
On the morning she died in Montreal, Saturday, July 25, 1959, the telephone rang in our grandparents’ Toronto apartment. Grandma answered.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hello. It’s George.”
“George! Where are you? Where is Carol?”
“I’m in Montreal.”
“Oh—but what are you doing there? We thought you were in Argentina. Where’s Carol?”
“Carol died this morning.”
Grandma immediately dropped the phone and collapsed onto the floor.
* * *
—
TWO DAYS LATER, a terse death notice appeared on page 32 of the Monday, July 27, edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail.
BLACKSTOCK, CAROL JANICE GRAY – Suddenly, at the Montreal Neurological Institute, Montreal, Que., on Saturday, July 25, 1959, Carol Janice Gray, dearly beloved wife of George E. Blackstock, mother of Jeffrey, Douglas and Julia, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. F. Howard Gray, Toronto. Funeral arrangements later.
It is virtually certain that George would have written or approved this. For anyone who knew Carol, the news must have hit like a bomb. How on earth could she be dead? The word suddenly in a death notice often implied suicide. Could Carol have killed herself? And yet she’d been young, healthy, beautiful, popular, married with three small kids, and with everything to live for. Not only that, but hardly anyone knew she’d been seriously ill in Argentina—let alone that she’d been flown back to Canada on a stretcher.
With no information about the funeral, those who wanted to make arrangements to attend would have been bewildered.
What Carol’s family and friends in Toronto didn’t know was that the unusual circumstances of her death had required an autopsy—hence the delay in announcing her funeral. It was held two days after her death, on the same day as the death notice appeared. The pathologist conducting the autopsy was Dr. J.P. Valcourt of Montreal’s Medico-Legal Institute (Institut de médecine légale et de police scientifique). Also present, and observing with intense interest, were several MNI physicians, including Dr. J.B.R. Cosgrove, head of the team that had treated Carol.
It appears that George failed, then or later, to tell anyone that this was the reason for the delay in bringing Carol’s body home to Toronto. As I would learn, George, along with his cousin Mary and her husband, Sam (a doctor himself), with whom George was staying in Montreal, were pressing hard for release of the body. In fact, Dr. Valcourt would tell us, the delay apparently made George and his relations feel “quite hard done by.”
Evidently, Dad’s impatience was rewarded. On the day after the autopsy, Tuesday, July 28, the same death notice appeared again in The Globe and Mail, with the addition of the funeral details. The visitation at the funeral chapel in Toronto would take place that very same evening. Carol’s parents and friends received only a few hours’ notice to attend.
The funeral service would be held the next afternoon at Grace Church on-the-Hill, an Anglican church in Forest Hill attended by the Blackstock family. Interment would be in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery—in the Blackstock family burial plot.
The arrangements were all handled by senior Blackstock family members on behalf of George and his mother. Grandma was prostrated with grief, and Grandpa was looking after her amid his own emotional devastation, so they had little involvement in the arrangements for their daughter’s funeral.
Events moved so swiftly that Carol’s parents scarcely had time to arrange for their own family or their daughter’s friends to attend her funeral. Joan Clark, for example, Carol’s best friend, was out of town and didn’t hear about her death until well after the funeral had taken place.
Carol died on Saturday; the autopsy was performed on Monday; she was transported more than three hundred miles to Toronto on Tuesday; and by Wednesday afternoon she was in the ground.
* * *
—
WHEN GEORGE ARRIVED in Toronto from Montreal, he’d have been picked up at Malton Airport by Aunt Kay and her husband, Grant. They always picked George up for the drive into the city. As his big sister, Kay was never shy about telling him exactly what was on her mind. She’d have asked him, “George, what in heaven’s name happened? Why didn’t you let us know you were bringing Carol to Canada? Mother is very upset. What can we tell her?”
I’m sure George told them what he later told Julie, Doug, and me: that the doctors couldn’t discover what was wrong with Carol; that it was her idea not to tell anyone they were travelling to Canada, so as not to upset her parents.
My grandparents asked George similar questions. They were disbelieving and hurt when he told them their daughter hadn’t wanted them to know she was returning to Canada. That wasn’t like Carol at all. If she’d thought there was a chance she might die, she’d have wanted to see them right away. If she’d thought she was going to get better, she’d have had no problem telling them she was there. Why hadn’t George, under such life-and-death circumstances, taken it upon himself to notify them, even if it meant overriding Carol’s wishes? His insistence that she simply didn’t want to worry them was very hard for them to hear.
George’s mother would surely have asked questions too. So would friends who had been close to George and Carol as a couple. Others would have not asked, for fear of intruding, but would have wondered nonetheless.
I write “surely” and “would have” because Dad never told us anything about the circumstances of Mom’s death. He told us nothing about the funeral, nothing about who was there to say goodbye to her, or about who had expressed condolences to us as her children. Nothing. Some of what I know about all this came from my grandparents, for whom the recollection of these events was very painful. The rest comes from documents we acquir
ed later.
I asked a cousin of George’s who had attended the funeral to describe it for me, but I was stonewalled. Like many others in the Blackstock family, she didn’t want to talk about it. And yet, I have a pretty good idea what it must have been like, having attended services at that church and having known most of the people involved.
At the visitation, Carol’s closed coffin would have concealed the ravages of her sickness and the pathologist’s scalpel. Grandpa, Grandma, and Carol’s friends would have arrived at the funeral home in a state of helpless confusion. They’d scarcely had time to catch their breath. What could possibly explain Carol’s sudden death? George would have responded that he’d asked the same question, but there were no answers. The doctors simply didn’t understand why she’d died. He always said that, then and afterwards.
At the funeral service at Grace Church on-the-Hill, family and friends were still in shock, whispering among themselves, hoping somebody knew something, anything. It was understandable, but nonetheless unsettling, that Carol’s young children weren’t present.
At the tea following the service, conversation would have been muted, an awkward silence prevailing. With so many things unknown, what was there to say?
The guests would have stayed briefly, paid their respects to the bereaved husband and parents, and departed. Grandma told us that she and Grandpa, greatly outnumbered by Blackstock relatives and other strangers, soon left to go home. Grandma was so overwhelmed by sorrow that she couldn’t attend the interment. Largely bedridden for the next two months, she would lose a considerable amount of her hair and wore a hairpiece for the rest of her life.
Carol was laid to rest in the family plot of George’s ancestors at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, in midtown Toronto. Years later, Grandma told me she was upset by the coldness and anonymity of Carol’s nameless grave. There is no visible memorial to her. Even George asked, in a note to himself that we found among his papers after his death, “Who else is buried there?” Grandma and Grandpa had no say in the matter.
I never visited Mom’s burial site, not even with my grandparents. And Dad never took me there. Not once.
* * *
—
THE HASTE SURROUNDING Carol’s funeral might have been more understandable if George had needed to fly straight back to Buenos Aires to be with us, and to tell us of Mom’s death before we learned about it from others—his embassy colleagues, perhaps, or the household staff. A cousin of George’s told me later that she’d said confidently at the time, “Oh, George will be on the next plane to Argentina.”
But he wasn’t. Instead, he spent the next seven weeks in Canada—in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and points in between. He had paperwork related to Carol’s death to attend to. He had departmental business in Ottawa. Between appointments, he visited his friends at their summer cottages north of Toronto. It was August and September, and the warm weather, rocky shorelines, and blue waters of Muskoka beckoned. According to the cousin, even his best friends asked whether he didn’t want to get back to Argentina to be with his children.
In the troubled, anxious silence hovering around Carol’s death, there were things George undoubtedly didn’t mention. These included the fact that, after the initial findings of Dr. Valcourt’s autopsy, George had been summoned to an interview by the Montreal police.
Around the same time, the Montreal medical authorities met with Assistant Deputy Minister Leslie Brown, called in from Ottawa on short notice. Apparently, George was ordered—either by the police or his superiors in the federal government, or both—to remain in the country until further notice.
Those government officials, particularly Brown, now found themselves in a tricky position. The wife of a Canadian government representative abroad had just died under unusual circumstances—circumstances that had attracted the interest of the police, which suggested the possibility of foul play—leaving behind three children in the family home in Buenos Aires. The Montreal Neurological Institute doctors, the coroner, and the chief prosecutor for the province of Quebec, to whom the case had been referred, technically had no responsibility for those children—for us. And the Montreal police had no jurisdiction outside of Canada. But the Government of Canada, specifically the Department of Trade and Commerce and the Department of External Affairs, certainly did have responsibility, and they knew it, as shown by their swift reaction a month earlier to our grandparents’ inquiry about their daughter’s health.
If anything were to happen to us children—for example, because someone still in our house, perhaps one of the domestic staff, might possibly do us harm—Brown and other federal officials would be held responsible. They’d be found derelict in their duty if they hadn’t seen to it that the children were removed from the house or the staff dismissed, the usual courses of action in such circumstances.
Yet nothing of that sort was done. Instead, a cable from the Canadian embassy in Buenos Aires assured Ottawa, “children not been told [about their mother’s death] but being well taken care of.” Apparently, suspicion hadn’t fallen on any of the household staff.
* * *
—
TOWARD THE END of his apparently enforced seven-week stay in Canada, George was required to return to Montreal. He’d been called to another meeting at the coroner’s office on September 11. Years later, he would tell us it was an uneventful meeting that involved merely filling out some routine paperwork.
The next day, he attended a meeting at the MNI, where he picked up two typed letters addressed to “H. Leslie Brown, Assist. Deputy Minister, Dept. of Trade and Commerce.” Both letters were from Dr. J.B.R. Cosgrove.
Later that same day, George travelled to Ottawa and delivered the two letters to Leslie Brown. In turn, Brown provided him with a handwritten receipt for the letters and for bills George had submitted for Carol’s medical and hospital expenses. Since he’d undoubtedly read the letters (we found copies in his papers after his death), George knew that Carol’s doctors had considered “the possibility of an unknown toxin” as the cause of her death, resulting in the call to the coroner to conduct an autopsy. Brown also knew. And each knew that the other knew.
We don’t know exactly when, or from whom, George got the green light to leave Canada and return to Argentina as a free man, but it must have been right around this time.
* * *
—
GRANDMA LATER TOLD me that George telephoned before he left for Buenos Aires, partly to thank his in-laws for the presents that Grandpa had dropped off at Granny’s for us. It was a very short conversation. Grandma couldn’t come to the phone, and between Grandpa and George there wasn’t much to say. There had never been much to say at the best of times, and now there was really nothing. The main link between them was gone, suddenly and without explanation. What brief words passed were about us children, with assurances from George that the Grays would be kept in touch. Of course, he stressed, we children knew nothing of what had happened, so it was out of the question for Grandma and Grandpa to call us.
Around September 15, George left Canada to return to Buenos Aires. But first he made stopovers for a few days in New York and Mexico City for visits with friends, shopping, the theatre, and sightseeing. He sent a postcard to his mother from Mexico City showing the beautiful new Central Library building at the University of Mexico, with its Aztec-inspired murals.
Saturday Sept 19, 1959
Dear Mother:
Arrived here Thursday night after a fairly uneventful stay in N.Y.C. (saw “My Fair Lady,” did a little shopping, went out to dinner with a friend from the Consulate). I’m enjoying my stay with Dick Willemsen and his wife tremendously. Mexico City is beautiful; about 3 ½ million population. We drove out this morning to see the Aztec pyramids and ruined cities. This afternoon we went to see the University of Mexico – 50,000 students. This is the library on the Campus which is all new – a tremendous number of ultra-modern buildings. Leav
ing for BA tomorrow evening – will write from there
– Love George
P.S. The statue is not Stalin but the founder of the University
It had been nearly two months since our mother had died, and still no one had told us.
9
LIFE WITHOUT MOM
MARÍA LET DOUG and me stay up late for Mom and Dad’s long-awaited homecoming. It was the evening of Monday, September 21, 1959. We were already in our pyjamas with our teeth brushed, Julie fast asleep in bed. My brother and I were excited to be awake past bedtime on a school night. We couldn’t have slept anyway. Mom and Dad had been gone two whole months, and we were hopping with anticipation over seeing them again.
Keeping watch through the front window, we leaped off the couch when a car with bright headlights pulled into our driveway. María opened the front door and told us to wait just inside. She stood behind us, her hands resting gently on our shoulders. It was pitch-black outside and cool—early spring in Buenos Aires.
Dad stepped out of the car first, wearing an overcoat, followed by Dwight Fulford from the embassy.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice normal. “Where’s Mom?”
“Mom isn’t here right now. Wait for me upstairs, boys—I’ll explain in a minute. Good night, Dwight. I’ll see you at the office tomorrow.”
“Good night, George,” came the sombre reply.
A few minutes later, Dad came into our bedroom. I guessed he’d been talking to María.
“Where’s Mom? When’s she coming back?” I asked.
“Mom’s not coming back,” Dad said.
“Not coming back? Why not?”
“Well, Mom’s gone to heaven.”
“You mean she’s dead?” Even as I said the words, I couldn’t believe it was possible. But I knew what dead meant, and so did Doug.
Murder in the Family Page 11