EUGENIE SARA MATILDA ATTYGALLE COREA was the third daughter of Dr. John Attygalle and Charlotte Karunaratne. Her father was the first Sinhalese to study Western Medicine and obtain the MRCS, London and MD, Aberdeen, the first Sinhalese to act as the Principal Civil Medical Officer and the first Ceylonese Colonial Surgeon. He authored the book `Materia Medica’, a book on the indigenous medicinal flora of Ceylon and retired in 1898.

Her brothers were Dr. John Willy S. Attygalle, who introduced the X-ray to Ceylon, Theodore. P. Attygalle, the first Ceylonese Deputy Inspector General of Police, Henri Attygalle, who was a Police Officer, R. V. Attygalle, a Proctor and Clarence, who also studied medicine. Her eldest sister, Rose married Thomas Dunuwille from Kandy, and Adaline married Harry Ellawela from Ratnapura, while another sister Edith, married a Wijesinghe from Matara. Another sister, Florence married a Wanduragala from Kurunegala.

Eugenie married James Alfred Corea, the Mohandiram of Madampe. It is said that James Alfred Corea, when he came courting, it was to see one of the elder sisters. Tethering his horse to a tree, he spied a dainty pair of ankles high among the branches. Eugenie, a tomboy, then clambered down, and the rest is history. Eugenie relished relating the story of being taken for a ride in the carriage in Madampe, when the horses of their own volition suddenly wheeled through the gates of a large residence. To her amusement, she learnt that this was the residence of a planter friend of her husband, who had two attractive daughters.

She and her husband, had two children, Amybelle and Henri. Her husband James Alfred, passed away in 1915, having contacted pneumonia during the Sinhalese-Muslim Riots. Walking the length and breadth of the area under his jurisdiction in inclement weather to quell the fighting, he fell ill. His matching pair of black horses, apparently refused to pull the hearse. Eugene brought up her two children in Madampe. Many of her estates were sold to pay off the gambling debts of a favourite brother, who risked losing his high government post. This money was never recovered, as he passed away soon after. That debt was never settled.

She lived with her son, Henri for a time. Thereafter, for many years, she occupied a suite in the YWCA, at Union Place in Colombo and afterwards alternated between her son and daughter. Although an Anglican, she would visit the Catholic Kotchikade Church and attend Novenas at the All Saints Church in Borella, where her good friend Fr. Herat was the Vicar. She spent her final years with the Nuns in the Convent at Galle and passed away. She was laid to rest with her husband, in the family graveyard at Marawila.