Family legacy for the greater good

Today I am back in Cuernavaca, which is a relatively casual town in terms of fashion and image. But once in a while the large retiree community and ex-pats leave their linen shirts and sandals at home in exchange for more formal attire. Today's occasion is a fundraiser put on by a group of women who are building a breast cancer screening clinic in a nearby town called Tepoztlán. The clinic will be called Tepoz Rosa (rosa for the pink colour of the breast cancer awareness campaign).

My mom is on very familiar terms with the fundraising coordinator and also as a breast cancer survivor herself, she is very enthusiastic about the cause. Even more exciting was the fundraising activity itself. A $37 ticket bought limited seating at a talk about Mexico's art, food, and culture as well as a gourmet brunch in a very impressive setting. My mom reserved 3 tickets, one for each of us plus her sister, my Aunt Guadalupe who lives in Mexico City but was thrilled to make it to Cuernavaca for the day to enjoy the event, her older sister, and of course her niece who had flown all the way from Ottawa and had not seen her yet. 😉

My aunt Guadalupe (we call her Pita) is my Godmother and I remember as a child she was definitely my favourite aunt. She had a warm sense of humour and was really good with kids. She was different from my other 3 aunts as well as from my mom. Now that we are adults, my mom often compares us. We are alike in that we are both fiercely independent, we like to put ourselves together in the morning even if no one is going to see us that day, we like to joke around, we're attracted to older men and we're very organized. I am very proud of Pita because she has taken over my Abuelo's family business and turned it into quite the machine. At 75 years of age, she hasn't stopped. Part of it might be because she never had a family of her own, but I suppose the family business is "her baby." When she arrived for the fundraiser, she was quickly on her phone, ordering people around and making sure her big client, the Formula-1 event organizers had received their wholesale order of cleaning supplies, towels, paper products etc. The F-1 was taking place later that week in Mexico City, drawing thousands to the exclusive event.

All dolled up with my tia Guadalupe

I was not interested in the F-1 at all, both because of the subject matter and also because of the number of people gathering in one place. Plus I heard rumours that the tickets were in the thousands of dollars. My scene, for now, was the outdoor fundraiser with a maximum of 60 people in a private residence that belongs to a local philanthropist who often lends the grounds of her house for events. The homeowner is named Maria Teresa Trouyet Hauss de Diericx. Teresa's background is steeped in Mexico's mid-century business development. Her grandfather's family were key players in the nationalization or mexicanización of the telephone infrastructure in Mexico. Telmex, had been owned and operated by Ericsson, the Swedish company for 50 years before it was nationalized in 1958. By 1960 Ericsson no longer ran the phone system in Mexico.

Telmex and the Trouyet family had the wherewithal to create a private shareholder group for anyone who wanted to use telephones privately. This paved the way for huge cashflows that tempted any foreign owners to liquidate and give control to Mexico. Since those times, Telmex is a Mexican company, thanks in large part to the persuasive talents of Carlos Trouyet who has been nicknamed the Carlos Slim of the '60s. Carlos Slim is a Mexican business magnate and one of the richest people in the world. It is perhaps a strange coincidence that Grupo Carso, which is Telmex's largest shareholder is owned today by another Carlos, Carlos Slim.

Carlos Trouyet went on to apply his sharp marketing and sales talents to many projects, including partnering with Cartleton F. Boyle, -who previously was the CEO of Lock Joint Company- to develop a Mexico City residential neighbourhood that is now a household name, Bosques de las Lomas. Boyle's good friend Don Carlos Trouyet owned the land and C.F. Boyle created the development which was the first borough in Latin America to have all the telephone lines and electrical lines run underground. When my parents met in 1965 my dad didn't have a phone because no lines were available. My mom's family owned shares so she could call anyone with a phone. Finally my dad got a phone line and the first person he called was my mom, "Hola mi amor! It was a big deal in those days to have a phone. No wonder my parents married 6 months after they met.

Back to Carlos Trouyet: Trouyet helped build la Universidad Iberoamericana. He also was a patron of the arts, sponsoring the national symphonic orchestra. And perhaps closest to home, he also invested in the building of the hospital where I was born, Hospital ABC. Mexican media describes him as a friend of toreadors, famous actors, more so than of businessmen.

Among all this wealth and splendour, I find the Trouyet family fascinating because they never lost sight of what is most important, of faith and family. Carlos and his wife, Milly Hauss had 6 children and very sadly the 2 eldest died in a plane crash. Perhaps this is why the couple built their sanctuary in Acapulco, chapel La Paz. They also built Las Brisas hotel resort in Acapulco. The remains of the two children rest in La Paz as well as their great grandchild Fred McPhil who was murdered in a robbery attempt.

According to my source, the couple's family legacy is handwritten in a leather-bound book: "Be good citizens, serve your country, your homeland, without selfishness, with dedication, and never put your personal interests first. (…) Contribute towards creating a world of social stability. (…) Only the planned work lasts and bears fruit."

Carlos died of cancer in 1971, but his relative Teresa Trouyet still lives by the family values. In the 1980s She helped build the Cuernavaca campus of a major univiersity, Tec de Monterrey. Today she selflessly donated her home and her staff to be shared for a charitable cause. I am very humbled to have been one of the 60 people to gather in Teresa's garden and be able to contribute in some small part to the building of Tepoz Rosa.