Marion and Floss 1910 era.
“Speak to Mr. Jackson and ask him to spend more time on the subjects Flora is failing,” wrote Norman to Margaret in early September. Flora, of course, was not surprised.
As usual, her father was acting as if she were the only student in the school. Flora was reading the words for herself now. She passed the letter back to her Mom somewhat sheepishly.
“I an inclined to think,” Margaret said slyly. ” that you are the one I should talk to.”
“I will do better this year, I promise. I have incentive. After my trip to Boston, I know that I do not want to be a nurse. So I must get into teacher’s college.”
“Why not nursing?” Margaret asked.
“Because nursing seems not much different from mothering. Nurses must clean sick rooms and lavatories, have a knowledge of dietetics and food preparation, of hygiene and heating and ventilation, and of the dispensing of drugs. They tend people with scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid and pneumonia, sometimes a combination of these. See?”
“I see your point,” replied Margaret who had done all these things in the past and would likely continue to in the future. ” And for this they get paid?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then there is your difference.”
Flora had learned all this from the nurses at Newton, only one of whom was a surgical nurse, with very special training in operating room techniques.
The others, for all their three years of training,including anatomy and bacteriology and physiology, were glorified cooks and maids, for all she could see. No, nursing was not a profession she would want to pursue, although the women were nice enough. And they certainly enjoyed their off- time.
At Jetties Beach they had swum in the ocean and collected sea-shells. And rated the fashion sense of the ‘superior’ women who strolled the wooden walkways down to the water under parasols in their summer frocks, enduring the 90 degree heat radiating off the plush carpet of sand around their feet with a demure stoicism.
Flora had brought a handful of shells home and they were amassed on the sill in her bedroom, a charming, pearly reminder of her all too short trip to Massachusetts.
For a souvenir, Flora also had a thick advertisement filled program from the Boston Theatre Stock Company, and that Wellesleyan Magazine.
On the train trip home, her nose peeling from too much sun and surf, she had read an especially interesting article out to May. It was titled The Old Order Changeth.
“Yesterday, the struggle was for the higher education of women; to-day,the struggle is for the opportunity to have a voice in moulding educational,social and industrial conditions through the one medium which makes this possible, viz: the right to vote for measures and for men. The new struggle rests upon the same fundamental principle upon which the demand for educational opportunity rested, the right of women as individuals to individuality of action, their right to full equality of opportunity with the other half of the human race. Resting upon the same principles of right and justice as did the demand for higher education, it is bound to meet with the same triumphant success. By all the signs, that success is not far distant. Never before have the position, the rights, the demands of women so occupied the center of the world’s stage. Where, even three years ago, there was one article or editorial dealing with the subject, to-day, there are a hundred such articles in the various periodicals ; and, one after another, these periodicals are joining in the demand that women be given their full and free share in moulding conditions in city, state and nation. The old order is changing so rapidly that one scarcely dares to make a statement setting forth the precise status of women civilly and politically lest tomorrow’s dispatches bring word of change.”
It all seemed so exciting to Flora. She saw herself in her mind’s eye travelling with the suffragists, town to town, giving speeches in front of large enthusiastic crowds. Except she was not a Wellesley woman, who were generally well-heeled and could purchase the furs and fine silks advertised in the pages in front of her. If lucky, she would like her sister Marion before, have to scrimp and save her way through teacher’s college. Except she wouldn’t live at the Y, because the Normal School had just moved to Ste. Anne de Bellevue, on the Macdonald Campus. May was expecting to go there next year, and share a dorm room with her friend Alice Dresser, a bright and vivacious girl, whose father had been Principal of St. Francis College.
Margaret, who was now folding and flattening linen place mats at the kitchen table, spoke again. “If you don’t like the idea of nursing, and I don’t blame you, then teaching is your destiny, and for that you will have to pass French and Latin. But don’t feel too badly. A person who has struggled herself at school is bound to be a more sympathetic teacher. She was offering Flora encouragement. Just like her. So, why wasn’t it working?
