Meanwhile, the rest of the Brand family ate Christmas dinner without Paul’s mother. Paul realized that his mother was just as feisty as she had ever been. He knew she would never come down from the mountains to live, and that one day he would receive word that she had died there.
The trip to the Kalrayan Hills to visit Granny Brand was a refreshing break, but straight after Christmas, Paul plunged back into a heavy work and travel schedule. In January 1961 the American Society for Surgery of the Hand flew him all the way from Vellore to Miami, Florida, to be the keynote speaker at their conference.
No sooner had Paul arrived back in Vellore from his trip to the United States than he and Margaret were invited to be one of three couples to be introduced to Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to Madras. Again, Paul was grateful for the opportunity to speak a little about his work. What he spoke about must have impressed the queen, because not long afterward Paul received an official letter informing him that she had granted him a CBE (Commander of the British Empire), an honor one step below knighthood.
For the honor granted to be valid, it had to be accepted within a year at an investiture ceremony. These ceremonies were held four times a year in England, but none of the dates coincided with Paul’s travels. The honor would have to be conferred by the British high commissioner to India, who rarely came to Madras. Paul wrote to the deputy commissioner in Madras to see whether he could do the investiture and bestow the honor on him. The deputy commissioner wrote to say that he could and that Paul should plan on staying for lunch when he came.
On the investiture day, Paul was flying back to Madras from northern India. When he arrived at the airport, his suit was creased and wrinkled from sleeping on the airplane. He did his best to pat it down as he headed to the government house. Paul was expecting a small, quick ceremony with the deputy commissioner and then a cup of tea and sandwiches for lunch. Much to his surprise, when he arrived at the government house, he found the place draped in flags, with limousines parked outside. Paul was bewildered and wondered whether he had mixed up the time or the date for his investiture. Inside he found the political and social elites of Madras as well as many of his colleagues from the hospital in Vellore waiting for him. The men were dressed in morning suits and the women in fine dresses, their necks draped with jewelry. Paul suddenly realized everyone was there for him. He felt self-conscious in his wrinkled suit, and more so when one of his Indian colleagues stepped forward to remove a bedbug from his suit coat.
Following the investiture ceremony, a formal banquet was held, with Paul seated between the deputy commissioner and the mayor of Madras. It was hard for Paul to grasp that it was all being done in honor of him.
Paul now anticipated the joy of dedicating the new medicine and rehabilitation building in Vellore in January 1963. The building was one of the first such facilities in India. Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, president of India, was present for the dedication. Dr. Mary Verghese, whose dream of such a facility in Vellore had come true, sat beaming beside Paul throughout the ceremony. One of the most wonderful things about the new building was that it was not just for leprosy patients. The walls of fear and ignorance toward the disease were crumbling, and leprosy patients would be treated in the facility along with other patients.
Although Paul enthusiastically endorsed rehabilitation—and many men and women had been rehabilitated at Vellore over the years—he was concerned for the plight of the deformed and crippled in India, who most often ended up as beggars or being taken care of by their families. What these people needed was meaningful work that could bring purpose to their daily existence. Paul talked to several businessmen about the situation, and together they formed the Abilities Trust. The aim of the trust was to oversee the development of factories that employed only disabled people. Before long the first factory was up and running. It employed fifty disabled people who worked at manufacturing typewriter parts. The new venture was so successful that other factories soon followed.
With the end of their third term as missionaries at Vellore in sight, Paul and Margaret began to discuss what they should do next. Sixteen years earlier Paul had left England to come to Vellore and help the medical college gain accreditation from the Indian government. The Christian Medical College and Hospital at Vellore was now considered one of the best institutions in Asia, with the most up-to-date leprosy treatments available anywhere in the world. Paul began to feel that God wanted him to move on. He knew that he would always be a part of the community of those who worked to improve the lives of leprosy patients around the world. He just did not know exactly how his and Margaret’s future would unfold.
Chapter 15
Change
In April 1963, the Brands once again boarded a ship, this time the Cilicia, for the trip back to London, England. Once they had settled in, the children were enrolled in school. Patricia and Pauline went to a local school; Estelle, to a school across the city, which required a daily train commute; and Mary, to the same boarding school that Jean attended.
Paul and Margaret now met with leaders of the Mission to Lepers. They agreed to continue serving with the mission, with Paul as their spokesperson and liaison with other organizations, such as the World Health Organization. As spokesperson for the mission, Paul agreed to spend a year traveling the world, speaking and teaching.
Before he set out on his new task, Paul spent the summer with the children. The entire family toured France and Switzerland by car, camping along the way and enjoying each other’s company.
In September, Paul was off on his world tour. Jean, who had just finished boarding school, offered to look after the two youngest children so that Margaret could join Paul for the first part of the tour. Their first stop was Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the International Congress on Leprosy. At the congress, Paul sat proudly and listened as Margaret presented a paper on her work with eye patients, with special emphasis on treating those whose eyesight had been damaged by leprosy. Margaret’s years of methodical research at the Schell Eye Hospital in Vellore had made her a world authority on the subject.
Following the conference, Paul and Margaret traveled to leprosy hospitals and clinics throughout South America and then up the East Coast of the United States. In Montreal, Canada, they enjoyed a few days together relaxing before Margaret headed back to England to take care of the children.
Paul continued visiting clinics and hospitals and talking on radio shows, at Rotary Groups, and at church gatherings across the United States and Canada. Everywhere he went he found people whom he had trained or worked with at Vellore. Then it was on to Africa, Australia, New Guinea, Borneo, and Thailand. Lastly, he returned to Vellore to check on the work there and to visit his mother, who was still going strong and living by herself in the Kalrayan Hills.
Paul arrived back in England exhausted but exhilarated. He loved being a point person for leprosy—observing techniques on one continent and demonstrating them on the next. The lack of understanding about leprosy was shrinking as more experts gave the disease the attention it deserved.
The next year Paul followed a similar path, spending time in Caracas, Venezuela; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Vellore. He enjoyed the challenge of it all, but he wondered how many more years he could keep up such a hectic pace. Paul thought about getting a permanent job as a surgeon in England. In fact, he had been offered several positions, but he couldn’t imagine restricting his leprosy work around the world.
In 1965, just as he and Margaret were praying about what they should do next, Paul happened to visit the leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. He gave a series of lectures on what he had learned about rehabilitation through working at Vellore. Afterward, the director of the facility, Dr. Edgar Johnwick, approached Paul. “Here at Carville we’ve never had a pattern of rehabilitation like that!” he exclaimed. “It astonishes me that your patients in India have a better level of care than ours do here in the United States. You must move here and become head of surgery and rehabilitation and show us how you do it!”
Paul wondered whether Dr. Johnwick was joking, but the doctor looked very serious, and very excited. “Would my English qualifications be accepted here?” he asked.
“I’m sure we could arrange that,” Dr. Johnwick said.
Paul was taken aback, but he felt like he should continue the conversation. “And how about my wife, Margaret. As you know, she is an eye specialist. Could she work at Carville?”
“I don’t see why not,” Dr. Johnwick answered.
Paul had one last question. “Could I have as much time off as I needed to continue my leprosy work around the world?”
“Absolutely,” the director stated.
That night as Paul lay in bed at the guesthouse just a stone’s throw from the Mississippi River, he tried to imagine his family living in Carville. There were wide-open spaces, and Dr. Johnwick had said that the girls could fix up the dilapidated stables if they wanted to keep horses. Louisiana State University was located just forty-five minutes away in Baton Rouge. Christopher might like to attend there.
The next morning Paul asked a staff member if he could borrow a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He sat in his room, turned the record knob, and spoke into the microphone. “Hello, everyone,” he began. “I’m here in Carville, and a very interesting opportunity has come up. I can’t possibly take a serious look at it until I have heard from all of you.” Only two years after returning to England “for good,” Paul was outlining the pros and cons of moving to Carville.
Paul mailed off the tape to England and continued his travels. It was two months before he returned to England, and upon his arrival, his family informed him that they had made a decision: if Paul wanted to go to Carville, then they were up for the challenge. It would mean separating again, but hopefully within a year or two they could all be together again in the United States.
Paul’s cousin, John Harris, and his family were home in England on furlough, and they agreed to take in several members of the Brand family. Jean, who was now training to be a nurse, could stay with them on her weekends off. Estelle had one more year of high school, which she wanted to complete in England before moving to the United States. Mary was still at boarding school and would come back to the Harrises for holidays. Christopher would go on ahead, tour the United States by bus, and enroll at Louisiana State University in the fall.
Paul felt strongly that God had arranged the circumstances for him to go to Carville, so with peace in his heart, he called Dr. Johnwick and agreed to begin work at the leprosarium in December 1965. Not long afterward Paul received word that Dr. Johnwick had died suddenly. He was sorry that he would not have the opportunity to work with such a gifted man as Edgar Johnwick, but Paul felt sure that his replacement would be just as forward thinking with regard to the treatment of leprosy.
Paul left England ahead of the rest of his family and arrived in Carville in late December. It was wintertime in Louisiana, but compared to winter in England, it felt positively balmy.
The leprosarium at Carville was administered and run by the U.S. Public Health Service. It was situated on 330 acres of land beside the Mississippi River, ninety miles west of New Orleans and thirty miles south of Baton Rouge. From his previous visits Paul was already familiar with the lay of the land. The property was completely enclosed with a high wire mesh fence and a guardhouse, and guards controlled all entry to and exit from the facility. The site had once been a plantation. Immediately inside the gate to the right was the old plantation house that had been converted to administrative offices. Beyond the old plantation house sat the two-story hospital building with various wings branching off from it. Beyond the hospital building was a large expanse of open grass fields crisscrossed by concrete paths. There was even a small lake on the property for fishing. Nestled between the hospital building and the field were small bungalows that were home to many of the lifelong patients. And live oak trees grew everywhere, spreading their branches wide and offering shade from the fierce bayou summer heat.
