Ann Porter, Nurse

Betty Baxter Anderson, il. Roberta Paflin
1942, Cupples & Leon Company

"Miss Porter, why are you entering nursing?"
Ann was prepared for the question, but it had come abruptly. She was determined not to falter. "At this time particularly," she said slowly and thoughtfully, "I think women should be of some value to the world. I don't want to be worthless. Trite as it sounds, I want to do my bit."

The time is 1942, during the Second World War, but Ann's comment has a more personal side. Yes, there is a desperate need for nurses both overseas and at home, but she has a more personal, secret reason for wanting to be of value. The chic, beautiful brunette startles her new friends at the nursing Training School with her wardrobe, her awkwardness with household chores, and her secrecy, but she's friendly and quickly forms good relations with sporty Texan Marge Nelson, shy Carol Kane, and handsome intern Robert Coran. She also forms a nasty enmity with scheming redhead Lita Wilson, who also wants Robert, and who quickly realizes Ann has something to hide.

Ann and Marge find an abandoned baby on the hospital doorstep, and take an interest in his fate as he's taken in and operated on for a clubbed foot. Junior, as the infant is dubbed, provides a link between Ann and Dr. Coran, a link encouraged by everyone but Lita and the strict no nurse/intern fraternization rules.

An interesting story with good pace and appealing characters. The writing is better than many series books, without being exceptional. Most notable lacks are very little sense of place, and some stilted dialogue. The mystery of who Ann is, and why she is hiding her identity, is fairly engrossing, but while the revelation is satisfactory, the wrap-up is not. One unique item is the mention of the Amana colonies near the nursing school, and the girls' visit there. And Anderson has a very nice talent for making domestic scenes warm and desirable. For example:

The thoughtful Winchesters had lit a fire in the little iron stove in the warming shack and left a plate of sandwiches and a thermos of hot coffee. "There's enough food for a half dozen," Ann thought. "It was certainly sweet of them."

About the author
1908-1966

An Iowa native who later moved to California. Anderson wrote twenty books for children and teens.

Other books by Author
Peggy Wayne: Sky Girl 1941
Connie Benton, Reporter 1941
Nancy Blake, Copywriter 1942
Julie Brent Of The WAAC 1943
Four Girls And A Radio 1944
Holly Saunders, Designer 1947

Children's Books
Secret Of The Old Books 1952
Curtain Call For Connie 1953
Adventures In 4H 1938
Alabama Raider 1957
Powder Monkey 1962

Links
University of Iowa Library, special collection
Amana Colonies

Sue Barton, Visiting Nurse

Helen Dore Boylston, il. Major Felten (jacket)
1938, Little, Brown

Not many of the houses looked prosperous and most of them were grimy; yet the street had charm, for traces of another era lingered in the crookedness of windows and doors, in the casual little yards, in old-fashioned wooden porches elaborate with scrollwork. New York roared around the street and above it. An icy wind from the harbor swept through it, blowing paper into the faces of pedestrians and tearing at the "For Rent" sign swinging over the door of the smallest house on the street - a tiny red brick house with green shutters and a white door.

Sue Barton and her friend Kit Craig have graduated from school and come to New York City (all 3 boroughs) to work for the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service, a branch founded by Lillian Wald to improve slum conditions. In distinctive blue uniforms and toting large medical bags, they learn on the job about the challenges facing poor immigrants in neighborhoods all over New York. Their good friend Constance Halliday is not there because she's going to get married, but Sue has postponed her marriage to Dr. William Barry to work for a few years. Sue loves her work with Henry Street, and the excitement and novelty of New York, but as the year wears on and Bill gets impatient for their wedding, she feels torn between the job she loves and the man who loves her.

For a heroine in 1938, Sue's pretty gutsy about her own career ambitions. She does, finally, find a compromise to giving up her work and giving up her boy, but she gives him some pretty tough arguments first. The slums and streets of the city are given the same sort of colorful/crowded/exciting treatment that they usually get, and remind you irresistably of a Cagney movie. Descriptions of the poor immigrants and blacks Sue works with feel dated, particularly some dialogue, but the author clearly wants to communicate the both the wide range of peoples in New York and their essential decency, which are both very modern and pleasing attributes. Sue helps a depressed young Polish girl, an Irish child, a Polish woman, and assorted people of no distinct ethnicity, as well as several African-Americans (not so called in the book, of course); more importantly, she is helped by a bustling Italian woman, an Irish cop, a rabbi, and others. One oddity is the utter lack of any Catholic priests, considering the many Poles, Irish and Italians.

The style is plain and not particularly evocative or involving. The character of Sue is strong and vibrant, and the engine for the whole book. Her delight in the streets of New York, the people she meets, etc., lend the rather prosaic descriptions their power. The imagination fills in quite a lot from other books and from movies. There is a mystery, a romance, and a wedding, but the main story is the hard work of the nurses in a big city teeming with poor and working people.

Other Books

Sue Barton
Sue Barton: Student Nurse
Sue Barton: Senior Nurse
Sue Barton: Visiting Nurse
Sue Barton: Rural Nurse
Sue Barton: Superintendent Of Nurses
Sue Barton: Neighborhood Nurse
Sue Barton: Staff Nurse

Carol Page
Carol Goes Backstage
Carol Plays Summer Stock
Carol On Tour

Other information
The Tiny Pineapples website contains a frighteningly complete list of nursing-themed books.

Other Editions