The War Nurse

by Tracey Enerson Wood

  I suspected she was hesitant due to hearing and believing that I had a particularly close relationship with Dr. Murphy by the way she pressed her lips together every time I mentioned him. When asked indirectly about the delicate issue, she squirmed. “If you don’t mind, Miss Stimson, I like to keep my feelings and opinions to myself.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was intimidated by me or if it was just her nature, but I respected her request. I treated Miss Taylor as if she were any other of the nurses under me, that is, with a certain professional distance. Even though I craved what they had with one another, I knew I could never be part of it.

  * * *

  In my lonely moments, I turned to my stack of personal correspondence, running my finger along the smooth blue satin ribbon that bound it. When I moved to St. Louis, I didn’t bring a stick of furniture or even so much as a spoon. What I did bring were important family letters or carbon copies of some I had sent to others that were particularly meaningful. It was a rather lazy way to keep a journal; why write the same information twice?

  During my summer in Montauk, my first away from home, I was so homesick, I wrote and wrote in order to get plenty of letters back, which I read over and over. It was then that I had the first inkling of what I should do with my life.

  Dear Mother,

  After hearing you go on for years about your acquaintance, Emily Warren Roebling, I can finally say I have met the fine woman. She was here at the invitation of Reubena Hyde Walworth, the nurse and Vassar graduate who also requested my classmates and me to volunteer here. Miss Walworth is nothing if not persistent!

  Mrs. Roebling was invited by Miss Walworth, since “if she can build the Brooklyn Bridge, she certainly can build a campground.” The difficulty of building a “campground” that is to be a field hospital for thirty thousand very sick soldiers and their caregivers and built on sand and swamplands seems to be understated.

  Mrs. Roebling is impressive, both in physical stature and message. She stands just a few inches shorter than me, which, of course, is still rather tall. She arrived by train, alighting without any assistance and carrying her own bags. I was appointed as one of her escorts, and she rapidly and instinctually took in a mass of information that tumbled from the mouths of our doctors, builders, and local leaders.

  The next day, she met with the camp officers with a detailed plan for future construction. I watched their eyes widen and jaws drop as they reviewed them. Apparently, they didn’t expect much from this unofficial engineer, and a woman to boot.

  Later on, Mrs. Roebling delivered an inspiring speech to the staff. She impressed on us the importance of doing such. “It will be incumbent on you young women to carry the message forward. Learn to speak with authority.”

  I wish I had written it all down, even though her words were enhanced by her powerful delivery. She spoke of duty, of dedication to a cause. She thanked us all, even though we volunteers have not done much to merit her high praise.

  Afterward, while I was escorting her to the train and we were chatting about the great plans she had laid, she abruptly stopped walking. I asked if she needed something.

  “Yes, my dear girl.” She stabbed my chest with her finger. “You. You represent the future of women. I have seen how you carry yourself, seen the intelligence behind the veil of modesty.”

  My cheeks grew hot as she went on, and I wondered why she had singled me out of many.

  “Miss Walworth tells me your marks are tip-top. I understand you have some physical difficulties.” Her eyes dropped to my scarred and now shaking legs. “All that means is that you can face the challenges that you will surely meet. I expect much of you.”

  I managed a feeble “Yes, ma’am” before she yanked up her dress and stepped up into the train.

  Oh, Mother, what am I to think of this? Am I to believe she gives this little speech to every young woman she meets, or do I have a higher responsibility because of my fortunate circumstances?

  Your loving daughter,

  Julia

  I teared up, rereading my own letter. Not long after I had graduated from Vassar, I read of Mrs. Roebling’s passing. It was as if someone had thrown a direct punch into my gut. As I tucked the letter back into its envelope, it occurred to me that I had never written to her to thank her for her words of encouragement. I had been so flabbergasted at the time that I neglected the opportunity. Emily Roebling had set a course for my life, and she would never know it.

  * * *

  A deep tone sounded in the ship, like a foghorn on a lighthouse. Maybe it was a signal to the other ships in our convoy or perhaps some signal for the crew. I was curious to learn more, to see the captain’s bridge, the engines, the galleys, and so forth. I liked to know how things worked. But I was a guest on this voyage, my duties strictly limited to the well-being of my fellow passengers, my nurses.

  It turned out the tone was a signal for the crew. Soon after, there was a knock on my cabin door. I and the other nurses stumbled out, some yawning and rubbing their eyes, clearly roused from an afternoon nap. We were ordered to find our life jackets, then head to the top deck.

  I knew it was a drill, but others didn’t. This helped me identify more about their individual characters, as some calmly found their jackets and helped the others who weren’t quite so quick to respond.

  The drill was a practice session to learn about how to evacuate the ship in an emergency. It was one of the required changes that had come about since the sinking of the RMS Titanic five years earlier. Each and every person had a life jacket and an assigned lifeboat. During the drill, we practiced going to our assigned stations, where we were to climb onto the lifeboats swinging from davits should an emergency evacuation be necessary.

  The crew endeavored to make the exercise as realistic as possible, using megaphones to pass along messages. “Now hear this. We are four hundred nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, not far from the resting place of the Titanic, may she and her fallen rest in peace.”

  I watched my nurses. Some acted as if it were quite the game, patting at their life jackets and making swimming motions. Others elbowed the clowns, scolding them to pay attention. Still others had hands to their foreheads to block the bright sun as they seemed to scan the water for icebergs. The terrible tragedy was still quite fresh in everyone’s mind, and we were on nearly the exact same route, during spring, the same time of year as the ill-fated ship had sailed.

  A helpful boatswain in a blue uniform and white hat came over to reassure them:

  “Don’t worry, ladies. We have an ice patrol out here around the clock now. And much better communications.”

  * * *

  Back in my cabin, I carefully restowed my life jacket. It wouldn’t do if I, of all people, were to misplace it.

  I lit my electric lamp and debated whether to read more of the letters. They were ones I had sent to my father, during a time in our relationship I did not wish to relive. I adored him, and although he made his decision out of some sense of duty, it confounded me then and confounded me still. It went against all he had professed to me since I was a little girl. And yet, when the time came to live by the words he had preached to me, he instead went with the wind of the times.

  One letter had irregular fold lines from being crumpled, then straightened again. It recounted my uncle Lewis’s visit to me at Montauk, which had convinced me that I was destined to follow in his footsteps. He was a rather prominent surgeon in New York City.

  He was a hero in that military camp, having developed innovative treatments for battle wounds and preventing infections. As I led him around the grounds, the physicians and military officers would come up to him, fairly gushing with their thanks and admiration. I wanted that.

  Oh, how hopeful I had been, with the sparkling clear vision that only a twenty-year-old could possess. I had been quite spoiled, for I had been taught that not only was I expec
ted to go out and make a difference in the world but that the opportunities to do so were boundless.

  The next few letters in my stack dripped with sorrow and confusion as I railed against the two men I held in most esteem, the two men I thought would support my ambitions. The two men who denied me financial and emotional support because “women are not suited for the practice of medicine.”

  A familiar twist in my gut caused me to stop reading. After graduating from Vassar, I cast about, taking several unfulfilling jobs, and managed to scare away the few interested suitors my sisters sent my way. I liked to blame my height as the reason they never requested a second date, but I feared it was my own failure to provide any sense of fun or interesting conversation that disappointed them.

  Taking poor care of myself, an old skin affliction on my legs had come roaring back. The cause was unknown, but once it started, it was difficult to treat. My legs became so covered with open sores, I had to be hospitalized. But there was a silver lining, for it was there that I met Annie Goodrich.

  I was in my hospital bed, unravelling a row of knitting that was supposed to be purled and cussing up a storm, when Miss Goodrich marched straight to my bedside. She introduced herself as the head of the New York Training School for Nurses.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think anyone could hear me,” I said.

  “Hear what?” She crinkled her brow in confusion, but I was sure she had heard a few expletives. “You’re Julia Stimson?”

  I nodded.

  “A surgeon I know asked me to talk to you. He thought you needed some career guidance.”

  She didn’t have to say his name. “No doubt that was my uncle Lewis.”

  She sat on the chair at my bedside, and we chatted a bit. She reviewed some of the new developments in her field and how nursing was as much a profession in its own right as law or medicine. She said, “We need to encourage bright, educated women like no time before.”

  As we grew comfortable with each other, she asked why my uncle Lewis had been so solicitous of her help.

  I folded the top of the bedcovers and smoothed the crease over and over as I pondered answering a delicate question without insulting all she stood for. “All my life, I was told ‘to whom much is given, much is expected.’ It wasn’t enough in my family to follow the rules, get good marks, be kind to others. As you know, my uncle is quite well known for his advances in surgery, and my cousin is a high government official. And some time back, a very special woman told me that I had the wherewithal and duty to do something important with my life.”

  I paused to see her reaction. Her face seemed open and interested.

  “I don’t want to seem conceited, but rather, driven. And my drive has always been to a career in medicine. So I did all the steps. Graduated with honors a year early from Vassar. But when it was time to apply for medical school…”

  “Your uncle didn’t help.”

  “Worse. He and my father were actively against it, saying it was not an appropriate career for women. So without the financial support or the blessing from someone close to me who was so prominent in the field, it was hopeless.”

  “I’m truly sorry this happened to you. And if it is still your dream, you should look for a way to attain it. But I’m a believer that things happen for a reason.”

  “I believe that. But so far, I haven’t figured out what that reason is.”

  “If you really want to do something with your life and the medical field is your passion, then you should consider nursing. They are the ones who actually give the care. They are the ones the patients count on and who know what needs to be done. Physicians don’t have the time or the inclination to really get involved in the healing process. From what Dr. Stimson told me about you, it seems a perfect fit.”

  We talked some more, but the idea was rapidly gaining my interest. What did I have to lose? I asked her, “What if, later on, I still want to become a physician?”

  “That happens sometimes but not often. But for those who choose that path, what better preparation could they have?”

  “First, I need to break out of here. Do you know about this?” I pulled the bedsheets from my bandaged legs.

  She rose from her chair, not even glancing at my legs. “Training starts in two months. You’ll be fine by then. I’ll write a letter of recommendation to any school you choose, but of course I hope you choose mine.”

  I was excited about something for the first time in ages. But I couldn’t accept favoritism due to my uncle’s influence. “If you don’t mind, Miss Goodrich, I’d like to apply on the strength of my own academic and personal record.”

  She turned to leave. “As you wish.”

  So I became a nurse both because of and despite the influence of my father and Uncle Lewis. But it had been my decision, and it saved me from a downward spiral from which I might never have recovered.

  * * *

  Tearing up the last two letters, I vowed to never ponder those what-ifs again. I glanced around at my cabin. My cabin. Beautiful wood inlaid walls, stacks of books and personnel records. A desk with an extra lamp to make up for the blacked-out porthole. I straightened myself in my chair, the chief nurse on a very important mission.

  Aside from my Achilles’ heel, or rather in my case, Achilles’ legs, I was healthy and fit. With the possible exception of Charlotte, I was backed by dozens of well-trained and dedicated nurses. Most of them had had a much tougher upbringing than did I. I needed to let go of the hurt and embrace the challenge ahead of me.

  I retied the blue ribbon around the letters, saving the rest for another day. But their lessons—of hopes and dreams, of visions and disappointments—stayed with me. Even so, I couldn’t calm the tumbling in my stomach, couldn’t ease my mind to a restful state. All I could hear was the pounding of the engines, their vibrations a constant hum through my body. I couldn’t see out the sealed porthole, but I knew there was nothing but the black sea and sky.

  A sense of panic crept within me, like being squeezed by a python. What on earth have I done? Why am I leaving the world I know, the job I loved and worked so hard to attain? I pushed those thoughts out of my mind, forcing the python back into his cage.

  At dinner each night, I shared a table with several of my nurses and an accountant who was conscripted as an orderly, and sometimes a doctor or two joined us. For some reason, it was never Dr. Valentine. I wasn’t sure how I had managed to get on the wrong side of his acceptable people list, but I was fairly certain it was because I stood up to him, both literally and figuratively. But there would be no hiding behind heavy office doors in this assignment. We were bound to knock heads.

  Our group liked to discuss what we would be doing back home in St. Louis. One of the men kept his watch set for St. Louis time. One of the days on which we were sailing was the graduation day for my student nurses back home. Oh, how it pained me not to be with them. At the appointed hour, we gave a toast and signed a card to send to them.

  I only had to look around at the eager and dedicated faces around me to realize we were headed in the right direction. To unselfish service, to something bigger than all of us.

  * * *

  We arrived in Liverpool and spent a day there as our belongings and supplies were sorted from the ship. Something we learned to get used to was the people of the town rushing up to us, pressing gifts of sweets or books or flowers upon us. They grabbed our hands, sometimes even kissed them.

  They called us sisters and angels sent from heaven. And we Americans did seem to be from some heavenly place of abundance compared to the Brits. They were, without exception, very thin and pale. Perhaps not quite at the brink of starvation but not too far from it. I felt conspicuous with my robust frame, and it seemed wrong to accept their gifts of food yet impolite not to. I had only a few crackers left from my purchases in Grand Central Terminal and wished I had thought to bring tasty treats to sha
re with them.

  My assistant chief nurse, Miss Taylor, was both quite overwhelmed and moved by our reception. “But we haven’t done a thing!” she kept saying. As a small woman, barely five feet tall, she sometimes disappeared in a crowd. I, at over six feet tall, was generally head and shoulders above the rest and could spot her, whereby I would drag her by the elbow to safety. This seemed comical to my nurses, who likened us to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. I laughed it off as a compliment. After all, I would tower over even the swashbuckling actor.

  * * *

  Next was nearly two glorious weeks in London, where we stayed at the luxurious Waldorf Hotel and were treated to theater, concerts, fine food, and lovely teas. Mixed in were lessons on what to expect once we arrived at our duty station. After rumors that we were to be sent to Russia, Africa, or Mesopotamia, we learned our unit was to serve in Rouen, in Normandy, France, to replace the staff of British Expeditionary Force, or BEF, Hospital No. 12.

  If ever I was in doubt regarding the need for our country to come to the aid of our allies in Europe, that came to an abrupt end after speaking with a major in the Royal Army Medical Corps, or RAMC. He was impossibly thin and hollow-eyed and perhaps four or five years older than me, which is to say about forty. At first, we made small talk, some lighthearted ribbing about the Brits about to hand the Yanks a hell of a mess they’d gotten themselves into. As he grew more comfortable with me and the five or so other Americans at the table, he shared his experience as a prisoner of war.

  “I was captured in early 1915, then spent three days crammed into a train with hundreds of other prisoners. We had no food or water. I watched helplessly as dozens died of thirst and dysentery, trying my best to stay away from their fetid corner. Every so often, we would stop in a German village. Women dressed in Red Cross uniforms held up cups of water or milk to our lips, only to snatch them way, shouting Schweinhund!” He told us that was a terrible slur and translated to pigdog.