In 1935, after enduring a three-year ordeal involving the kidnapping and murder of their first born son and the trial of the man accused of committing the crime, Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh chose to flee the country that had made them national icons. Charles, whose battles with the media over issues of privacy were long-standing, confided to a friend that, "We Americans are a primitive people. ...Americans seem to have little respect for the law or the rights of others." The Lindberghs found sanctuary in the English countryside. Two years later, they moved again, this time to a tiny island off the northwest coast of France. One reason for their choice of locales was so Charles could work more closely with Dr. Alexis Carrel, a Nobel-prize-winning French scientist.
Carrel was regarded as a brilliant medical pioneer for his work in suturing small blood vessels during surgery and in transplanting organs. Lindbergh was eager to discuss with him the potential for successfully operating on a defective human heart. Anne's sister, Elisabeth, had recently suffered a heart attack that permanently damaged her heart's valves. Lindbergh, ever the mechanical wizard, came up with an idea for a heart pump that he revealed to Carrel. Carrel was impressed. The two men collaborated on research and published a book together in 1938, "The Culture of Organs."
