Chapter 12
For a full ten seconds, Maggie simply stared at the doctor blankly.
“A nurse?” she finally repeated, her tone incredulous. Such a prospect had never occurred to her. She’d barely thought about nurses, never mind how they were trained.
“Yes, a nurse,” Dr. Brown replied cheerfully, smiling at her obvious surprise.
“We train young women much like yourself here—women with purpose and determination, who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and get to work!
As I told you when you so ably assisted me at Miss Conant’s establishment, you have a cool head on your shoulders.
I think you would make a wonderful nurse. ”
“I…” Maggie shook her head, speechless.
“It’s a two-year program,” Dr. Brown stated briskly, “right here at the hospital, and room and board are provided in the nurses’ residence nearby.
Last year, we had eight women in our program, and they are all now working at either the hospital or in private homes.
This year we hope to graduate ten.” She cocked her head, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
“I confess, the hours are long and the work is hard, and you will undoubtedly be tested to your very limits, time and time again. I firmly believe, however, that the work itself is its own reward, and I think you will find that to be the case, as well.”
She leaned forward, a zealous light coming into her eyes, her hands clasped on the desk in front of her.
“We are saving lives, Miss O’Halloran, and often lives that many people don’t consider worth saving—the poor and the destitute, women and children whom the world dismisses or ignores.
Lives, granted by God, that deserve respect and care, and they will find both here, if nowhere else.
” Her smile was touched with sadness before she continued, “We are, of course, a women-only institution, and therefore our medical and housekeeping staff are all female. And we are the only professional nursing school west of the Rockies.” She cocked her head as she smiled at Maggie. “What do you think?”
“I…” Maggie shook her head slowly, overwhelmed by everything the doctor had just told her. “I don’t know what to think,” she admitted on a trembling laugh. “I’ve never even considered becoming a nurse before. Until today, I’d never even been in a hospital!”
Dr. Brown chuckled lightly. “Then you are fortunate indeed, I should think, not to have ever had to enter the doors of such an institution! I know most people turn to a hospital only as a last resort, but we are trying to change that, and I believe we are succeeding, day by day, with every successful outcome. Only this morning a woman came to us in the most desperate of circumstances—she’d caught her hand in a sewing machine. ”
Maggie couldn’t help but wince, and Dr. Brown nodded in understanding sympathy.
“Four fingers, all completely mangled. If she’d stayed at home, as many are wont to do, infection would have set in and she would have lost her entire hand, all the way to the wrist. As it was, we were able to operate successfully and repair and save three of her fingers.
The fourth remains to be seen, but she will still be able to work, if not at a sewing machine, then at something else. ”
Maggie nodded, swallowing dryly. She hated to think of the poor unknown girl’s mangled hand, and her own queasy reaction made her wonder how on earth Dr. Brown could think she was suited to training as a nurse.
“Perhaps you could tell me something of yourself,” the doctor invited. “How did you come to be here in San Francisco? You are not from the area, I can tell.” Her smile widened as her eyes twinkled with good humor, and Maggie let out another shaky laugh.
“No, I’m not. I came from Ireland—Ulster, if you know it.
I lived with my aunt and uncle in a haberdashery, but my father came to America to make his fortune.
My brother and I came over to join him two years ago.
” Only two years! It seemed like an absolute age, as if she’d lived several lifetimes in the space of mere months.
“First in New York,” she continued, “and then Chicago, and now here.”
“Goodness, all those places in two years?” Dr. Brown exclaimed. “You’ve moved around quite a bit, then.”
“Yes… my brother and I…” Maggie swallowed, unsure how much she wanted to explain. “We were looking for our father. When we arrived in New York, we discovered, he’d… had to move on, and we eventually made our way here, to San Francisco, where he’d settled.”
Dr. Brown nodded, looking thoughtful, no doubt wondering how, if Maggie had found her father, she’d ended up working in a brothel. Maggie knew she had no reasonable explanation to offer.
“And what did you do for work?” Dr. Brown asked after a moment. “Before Miss Conant employed you in her establishment?”
Maggie tried not to flush at that reminder as she answered, “I worked in a department store in Chicago, on the millinery counter. And before that, I was a housemaid in New York.” She would not mention the business that went bust, the fancy airs and graces she’d paraded about that had deserted her long ago.
She smiled wryly as she shook her head. “All in all, Dr. Brown, I fear I do not have much to recommend me to the nursing profession?—”
“You have my experience of you to recommend you,” Dr. Brown returned robustly.
“You handled yourself very well when I was operating on Jenny, and that is a better recommendation than any schooling or pedigree, I assure you.” She paused.
“Perhaps you think of nurses as what they once were seen as—often no better than drunken slatterns emptying slop buckets?”
Maggie recalled the smartly dressed nurses in the corridor here, with their crisply starched aprons and neat white caps. The nurses at this hospital were clearly of a different order altogether than what Dr. Brown was referring to. “I don’t know that I know enough of them,” she answered honestly.
“Well, things are different at our hospital,” Dr. Brown replied briskly.
“Here, we follow the pattern set by Miss Nightingale, as well as Miss Maxwell, who founded the St. Luke’s Training School for Nurses in New York.
We hold nurses to a high standard, and the training and education is rigorous.
In addition to your work on the wards, you will be expected to attend lectures and complete a formal program of study.
At the end of a six-month probation period, you will be offered a permanent place, and you will receive your certification eighteen months later.
” She paused, her tone gentling as her eyes creased in a small smile.
“I should note that in addition to your room and board being provided, there is a small stipend of ten dollars a month to cover your personal expenses.”
“You mean I’d be paid to train?” Maggie asked disbelievingly.
Such a notion had not even occurred to her.
In the back of her mind, she’d already been feeling the futility of not being able to afford to enter such a program, of not having the luxury of even considering it, thanks to her severely reduced circumstances.
“Indeed you would,” Dr. Brown assured her, “and you would work hard enough to earn it, Miss O’Halloran, I promise you.”
Maggie nodded slowly. She had no trouble believing that, and yet she knew she wasn’t afraid of hard work.
And hard work with a worthy purpose, to help to save lives like that of Jenny, to actually add something to the world, to address its cruelties and injustices, even if just in some small way…
It all seemed so wonderful, and maybe too good to be true, and yet at the same time, it felt so very right.
This was something she could do, and more importantly, something that would be worth doing.
And, Maggie acknowledged with a thrill of wonder, this could solve all her money troubles, as well.
But more than that, far more than that, was the sense of purpose it would give her.
A sense of meaning she’d been lacking for far too long.
For once, the future didn’t feel like something to be frightened of. She’d have a place to stay, money to spend, along with a cause she could truly believe in. Maggie felt the stirrings of her old determination, but it felt different now—cleaner and stronger. Worthier.
“You are very kind to think of me for such a program,” she told Dr. Brown. “I’m honored even to be considered.”
“And do you think it’s something you would like to do?” Dr. Brown asked kindly. “The program starts in September, in just three weeks. You would need to write a letter of application, and I would provide your reference.”
Maggie thought of how humiliating it had been to admit she had no reference back at I. Magnin, and tears stung her eyes at the doctor’s generous offer, especially considering that Dr. Brown barely knew her. “You’re very kind,” she said again, in little more than a whisper.
“We need more nurses,” Dr. Brown replied in the same brisk tone she’d used before.
“Respectable and capable young women who aren’t afraid of hard work.
” She glanced away, pretending not to see Maggie dab at her eyes with her handkerchief.
“And you seem like such a young woman,” she added, turning back to her with a frank look, “with both a disregard for squeamishness and a kindly bedside manner. Both are sorely needed. Will you think on it?”
“I don’t need to think on it,” Maggie told her impulsively.
She knew she needed to grab this chance with both hands, as fast as she could, for it was the only one she had, and she wanted to take it, more, perhaps, than she’d wanted anything before.
Her old dreams felt like cheap, tawdry things compared to the shining sense of purpose she felt now.
“I am very grateful for your offer, Dr. Brown,” she said, “and I accept it gladly.”