Jean Craig, Graduate Nurse

The small village of Elmhurst, Connecticut, was enjoying a balmy early spring. The March winds were soft breezes coaxing the New England earth to life again.

Night had settled after a long twilight, and gay sounds could be heard coming from the nurses’ quarters at the Gallup Memorial Clinic. The clinic, now almost two years old, was the pride of the community. Before it was built, Dr. Gallup, gentle, wise and able physician, had tended the sick, brought babies into the world and guarded the health of the community with constant vigilance.

Like the noble man he was, Dr. Gallup refused to retire from active practice until he had helped to provide for the future medical care of his beloved patients. And because the town loved and respected him, they backed him solidly. Together the people of Elmhurst created the Gallup Memorial Clinic. And now, the white clapboard house which had once belonged to a wealthy native was a small but efficient combination hospital and clinic for the community.

Dr. Edward Barsch, eminent surgeon, had come down from Boston to serve as head of the clinic. His staff was small but competent, and he had managed to open an accredited nursing course.

It wouldn’t be long before the first class of nurses would graduate. Standing high in the class, Jean Craig, one of the very first girls interested in the clinic, was looking eagerly toward the summer day when she would win her cap.

But tonight there was no thought of graduation. The nurses were planning a party. For there was a wedding in the offing, and the excited girls were wrapping presents and prettying themselves for Ethel Simpson’s wedding shower.

Ethel had come down from Boston with Dr. Barsch to act as supervisor of nurses. As is told in Jean Craig, Nurse, Jean and her classmates had been taught and guided by the lovely, competent girl through their year and a half of training. They had also laughed and cried with her during her courtship and subsequent engagement to Dr. Ted Loring, staff pediatrician. And now they were planning many gay and exciting parties to celebrate the coming wedding.

The party was to be held at the Craig farmhouse just outside of town. And while the girls were getting ready, Mrs. Craig was making a final inspection of her home. When she was satisfied with the preparations, she threw open the front door of the farmhouse and took a deep breath of the fresh spring air.

It would be a happy spring, Mrs. Craig thought. Each year that passed seemed to push the war and the hardships that followed farther back in the shadowy memories of the family. Here in this simple village they had found peace and happiness.

She smiled as she thought of her family. It was truly growing up. Jean, her oldest daughter, was an adult. In a few months she would be twenty-one. It was exciting to have an adult daughter, Mrs. Craig thought fondly. Jean would be old enough to vote. She would be a registered nurse, and lastly, but most important of all, she would soon be a bride herself.

Five years ago, when the Craig family had moved to Elmhurst to forget the misery of the war years, Jean had met Ralph MacRae, a handsome young Canadian boy from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Jean Craig Grows Up tells how Ralph sold his Elmhurst farm to the Craig family, and lost his heart to Jean in the bargain.

Next came Kit. Mrs. Craig smiled in spite of herself as she thought of her nineteen-year-old impetuous daughter. Kit was the family scholar. She had been sent to Hope College in Delphi, Wisconsin, by a crotchety old uncle, and she had endeared herself to the elderly scholar by turning into a scholar, herself. The tale of Kit’s entrance to Hope College is told in Jean Craig Finds Romance. Mrs. Craig chuckled as she remembered how Kit and Uncle Bart had stumbled upon a secret while they were examining an ancient Egyptian mummy case, and how the money awarded to Uncle Bart was now providing her daughter with the chance for her education. Although Kit was many miles away from her family, Mrs. Craig could almost feel the vitality of her daughter halfway across the continent.