Though his baptismal certificate registers him as French, Antoine Frederic Ozanam was born in Milan in the north of Italy on the 23rd April 1813. The Ozanams moved to Lyons, France, in 1816, when Frederic was three.

Faith in God was the bedrock of the Ozanam family and Frederic grew up in a home where the values of caring for the sick, education, dedication and truth were paramount and practised with enthusiasm. Jean Antoine Ozanam, Frederic’s father, was a medical doctor and he spent long hours attending those who were poor. Frederic’s mother, Marie, also devoted herself to the care of poor people in need. A couple of incidents will illustrate this.

The first tells of an occasion when Dr. Ozanam had spent a whole night at the bedside of a poor man who was dying, even though his own little son Frederic was close to death from fever. As he was leaving the sick man he asked the woman to pray for his little boy. Antoine went to early mass in the church of St. Pierre on his way home. And he thought about his son – ‘Frederic the lovable, the tender-hearted, whose will was so strong, who could be so insistently demanding, but who was so honest, so sweet, so winning’ – and he, the doctor, could do nothing to save his boy’s life. But he trusted in God. On arriving home, he was met by his wife, full of joy; their son had asked for beer; the fever had left him; he was not going to die.

The second incident refers to a time when Frederic’s parents were both in poor health. Through mutual persuasion, they had each given a commitment to the other that they would climb no higher than four flights of stairs on their visits to people in need. One evening at the door of a sixth floor room they met face to face, their embarrassment mingling with amusement at being caught out by the other. It shows that their dedication to those who were sick or poor was so strong that on this occasion it outstripped even their commitment to each other’s wishes. Frederic imbibed this spirit of caring for people who were poor from them.

The parents held firmly to the conviction that their first and greatest responsibility was to nourish their children spiritually and mentally; to enable them to know and love their Creator and to develop their talents to the full that they might serve Him well. Before going to school at the age of nine, Frederic, like his siblings, had been taught at home. His father taught him some Latin; his mother took charge of religious education. But his favourite teacher was his sister Elisa, who thoroughly understood his fine and sensitive nature. The atmosphere in their home was conducive to learning, the house being frequented by learned guests, with conversation as their main entertainment.

When Elisa was 19 she was stricken with meningitis. Her father called in his fellow practitioners, but none of them could do anything. Their beautiful daughter and sister died. Frederic, who was seven years old, had had some experience of death before this, as only four of eleven children born to Jean Antoine and Marie had survived infanthood, and, besides, his father was constantly being called to the bedside of a dying person. However, the loss of Elisa, the sister he adored, left him utterly desolate and numb – ‘it was as if a veil had been drawn between him and the outside world; life was distant and unreal.’ His life changed utterly. He fell into a pattern of refusing to do his study and being sent to his room. But he never went to bed without apologising to his mother and being reconciled.

Frederic had lost his interest in learning and did not apply himself properly again until, at the age of nine, the need to get a place in the Royal College was strong enough to motivate him. His ability to learn quickly enabled him within a few months to gain entrance to the Royal College with very good results in his test.