Tarsila Carvalho

Sharing Life Stories

         My grandmother Lucy was born in 1938 in Australia, but as soon as she turned 4 years old, her dad got a job opportunity and she moved to Brazil. Her childhood wasn’t quite exciting; she stayed home all day with her mom, learning basic women jobs, such as knitting, cooking, playing the piano and cleaning up the house.

         She was also a very polite and well behaved girl; in school she was literally a flawless student. She did all the homework, even if she needn’t have done it, didn’t talk while watching class and, when she got home; she knitted

 a bit more and, of course, studied.

         When she was17, no one actually know what had happened; I guess she got tired of such an easy and perfect life and decided to change; drastically. One night, while everyone else was sleeping, she escaped from her house by jumping out of the window, stole her mother´s car and drove away to the airport.

         The thing is, when she got there, she realized she had left her passport at home. But neither that or anything could stop her; she flirted with the customs guys and, when no one was expecting, jumped in the next flight to Australia.

         The next time her family heard about her it was by a post card Lucy had sent. It showed a picture of her, jumping on a parachute with the subtitle “Good girls are bad girls that haven’t been caught! I’m coming back in a week xxx”.

Tarsila