The long, improbable journey that delivered me to the lecture halls and dissection labs at McGill University Medical School on my way to a doctor’s life began in the immigrant neighborhood of Alice Street in Guelph, Ontario. It was improbable because I had to grow up fast, flirted with the Grim Reaper once or twice, went to bed hungry more nights than I care to remember, and survived thanks to a series of small miracles facilitated by family, friends, and strangers alike. If I hadn’t lived it, I’d swear it was fiction.

It seems fitting now that my life began...

The nuns at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic School in Guelph would all have ended up behind bars had they been judged by today’s standards. In the 1940s, justice – and often injustice – was swift, cruel, and socially accepted, even for the youngest child. Many of us kids at Sacred Heart were first-generation Italian-Canadians who were painfully familiar with the whack of wooden spoons across the tops of our heads when we did something that displeased our harried mothers.

My first encounter with parochial discipline came like a thunderclap. I was an athletically precocious six-year-old who had discovered the thrill of banister...

Most of the houses on Alice Street had porches or verandas and these were almost always occupied in warm weather by neighbors who were characters in the play called Alice Street.

Mr Ferraro was an old, heavyset man who spoke in a booming voice and sat on his porch fingering his rosary beads, his lips moving in silent prayer. I would wave to him and he always waved back.

Mrs Ferraro was short and could barely see over the porch railing. Whenever someone passed, she’d lift herself up on the arms of her chair and crane to see who it...

Victoria Day, 24 May 1939, a holiday celebrating the birth of Queen Victoria 120 year earlier, fell on a Wednesday, which meant we kids had the day off from school. But we had to go to a special morning mass – I particularly had to be there because I was an altar boy. Some of my friends were altar boys as well, and that day I shared my duties with three of them: Massimo, Duke, and Duke’s older brother Manny.

It was a warm spring day and we were fidgety to get out into it as Father O’Brien emerged from the...

My eighth grade teacher was Sister Monica, the same nun who’d sent me sprawling when I was leaping down the stairs in first grade. I tread cautiously that year, applied myself, and ended the year with the highest grade point average among the boys. This won me an award from the Parish Ladies Auxiliary, given at a school ceremony.

The president of the auxiliary said a few words and handed me a check while the audience applauded. I thanked everyone and walked tall all the way back to the store, where I proudly showed Dominic the check. It was for...

Between high school, homework, my duties at the store, and church, my time was fully booked. I wouldn’t have dared complain, especially after my mother reassured me, “Some day you will go to college, and Dominic will pay for it just as the store paid for Silvio and Mike. Besides, you must do your share to help support the family.” In fact I become indispensable, a jack of all trades.

One of my duties was to stop at several homes on the outskirts of Guelph on my drive home from high school to pick up grocery orders from families that...

My busy work life at the family store kept me occupied but never distracted me from earning consistently good marks. My height shot up to six feet and at 160 pounds I was lean, tall, and all the lifting at the store had made me strong. But I was still wet behind the ears about the ways of the real world.

One of the most jarring lessons came in eleventh grade, thanks to an elderly English teacher, Margaret MacFee. She was also my homeroom teacher and on the first day of school she announced, “I think that all the people...

Inspired by Silvio’s example, I began to think about a career in medicine, although I wasn’t sure if I had the temperment and I knew it would be a huge financial challenge. I graduated from my final, college prep year of high school in 1948, ready to go to college, but Dominic insisted I’d have to work in the store fulltime for a year to save enough money. So I put my education on hold.

That fall, a chronic pain developed in my right ear. It was diagnosed as mastoiditis, an infection of the bone behind the ear, a condition...

My last year of high school counted for a year toward my bachelor of science requirements, so in the fall of 1950 I entered McGill as a sophomore. As soon as I was able, I went to Guelph to see Dominic about getting help for my expenses.

As usual, he said he had none to offer, and suggested I go to the parish, Sacred Heart, to ask about a student loan. I received $300, to be paid back after graduation. Later, Dominic managed to send me $500. Altogether I was able to raise enough so I wouldn’t have to work...

It was with much hilarity and backslapping that the chosen few of our freshman class met for the first time in the medical school’s foyer. We were elated, and we were surprised at some of those who were missing. One was the fellow who’d been president of the Premedical Society, a veteran of Korea, and a strong student.

There were also newcomers who’d done their undergraduate work at universities in other parts of the world. One of my classmates was the nephew of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, one of the most important political figures in modern Africa.

On a visit...

By the end of my first year in medicine, the easy sources of funding were gone and I had to look far and wide for money to pay my school bills and support Polly and Cathy. Many weekends I hitchhiked back to Guelph and knocked on every door I could find. After I’d gone through all the relatives and friends, raising a hundred here and a hundred there, I got out a telephone book and looked for familiar names of businesses that might be helpful.

I was on a mission and pride was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I walked...

The Freeport Sanitarium in Kitchener, known as “The San,” had been built in 1915 as a military rehabilitation hospital for wounded World War I veterans. It sat on fifteen pristine acres of farm property on the banks of the Grand River. It was in a sylvan, serene, resort-like setting – a great place to be sick.

Like many such facilities, it was surrounded by pine trees because it was thought that something in the trees, some chemical, was good for you. This was never established, but I think the isolation and calm were important. It was also considered healthy to sit...

As a graduate of a world-class medical school at a time of a shortage of doctors, my options seemed limitless. The next step was my internship and I could have applied to Royal Victoria Hospital or Montreal General, both prestigious assignments I was qualified for. But these positions paid an honorarium of only $25 a month. I had a wife, two children, and a mountain of student loans. My days of hitchhiking to raise money were over.

One of the opportunities that two of my classmates were considering was in Flint, Michigan. I made a visit and met with the...

I had my health back, my family was with me, and the fine western weather reflected my state of optimism. We decided we wanted to live in northern California in a smaller city than Flint but close to a larger city with such cultural amenities as the symphony, opera, and good restaurants.

The hundred or so offers had been organized for me by the placement service giving the location, annual rainfall, average temperature, demographics, local tourist attractions, schools, and expected salary. By the time we had crossed the prairies and the Rockies and were approaching California, Polly and I had...