A Nurse’s Daughter
My mom was a nurse. She graduated from a then three-year course (now it’s 4-6 years) in Minneapolis putting off her wedding date until May of 1941. For years when I was little, she’d don the traditional white uniform and shoes and hat to work as a private nurse. But as we got older, she became the administrator of our town’s only nursing home (in the 60s). It was to her workplace I went to lament my having dyed my hair black (to look more like my sister) to discover how terrible black hair looked on me. With compassion she delivered the hard truth – that I suspect she often had to say to patients and family – “There’s no fixing it. You’ll have to wait until it grows out.”.
We had our issues of course, including a practice she had of when I got lippy as a teenager, I’d be sent to my room to stay until I could come out “with a smile on your face.” (Did that really work, though? Hmmm). Once when Jerry’s mom was hospitalized and was very frightened, my mom slept on the floor of her room to give her confidence to sleep. I never met anyone who came across my mom who didn’t admire and love her, from patients to family to friends.
Famous nurses in literature and film unite us. Remember Nurse Ratchet of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest? The perfect example of the uncaring, authoritarian institution or the nurse from Misery played by Kathy Bates, who holds hostage her favorite writer. Bates quipped that she couldn’t get a date for a year after playing that part. And who can forget the confident, capable and always challenged nurse Hollihan of Mash. The Harry Potter series also had the school nurse, Madam Pomfrey, who was a compassionate listener and healer.
Historically, some famous nurses we might overlook because they were writers in their “real lives” also served. Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman both brought compassion and care to wounded soldiers as nurses during the Civil War, the latter moving to Washington DC, specifically to tend the wounded. His experience lead to many a poem including “The Wound-Dresser.”
This is National Nursing Month that seems especially poignant for me as it’s Mother’s Day month too. I’ll never forget my mom and dad coming to the ranch to care for us after our plane accident. It was the worst time for our bodies but the best time in growing closer to my parents, especially my mom. I wish she was still here for me to send her flowers. I’ll have to send her arrow prayers instead. If your mom is still on this side of heaven, let her know how you feel and that you’re ready to come out of your room with a smile on your face.
Launch
With the Enduring Tides is launched. Thank you all! It’s been a fun ride with book tour supports and so many of you posting pictures of receiving your pre-ordered books. Some of you even sent videos or told how you’d re-read Across the Crying Sands before delving into book two! I’m so happy! And relieved. With the Enduring Tides has received great reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and other professional reviewers, but the ones I value most are yours. If you like this book, please consider writing a short comment – review – on Goodreads or Amazon or BookBub sites.
And if you don’t like knowing what happened to Herbie and Olivia, or where Jewell went or how Amanda is and who are Henrietta and Virginia, you can post that too. Most of all, I hope you’ll wrap yourself up in how the anchor of this series – Mary Gerritse – navigates family and profession and faces the tragedies that every life brings. It is also now on Audible and Recorded Books. I suspect a large print may be available soon. Incidentally, someone asked how to pronounce the Dutch name Gerritse. Think emphasis on the first syllable Ger to rhyme with hair and the middle syllable to sound like et. The last syllable is sea. So it’s GER-et-sea. I know some of you like to pronounce names as they might really be. I hope that helps engage you even more with these remarkable women of Cannon Beach.
Book Sale
Speaking of nurses and books…My publisher of One Glorious Ambition has an ebook deal running through the end of the month. I recently heard from a reader in Nova Scotia who works at a hospital designed by Dorothea Dix. I knew of Dorothea’s work funding a rescue fleet there, but hadn’t known she also built a facility for the mentally ill as she did in so many states in the mid 1800s. What a delight to hear that her work now spans three centuries. She also served as the head of nursing during the Civil War.
Lincoln finally had to move her to another role because she only wanted to hire “unattractive nurses” so they wouldn’t get caught up with lonely recovering soldiers. One wonders how those who did get hired dealt with that hiring condition. Dorothea was all about care for the patients. The publisher is also offering a similar priced ebook for All Together in One Place. Thank you for considering these titles.
Events
If you’re reading this, you are in the drawing for the big giveaway that will be announced at the Tea in Cannon Beach Tomorrow! You don’t need to be present to receive. It includes the antique shell-covered duck, puffin wine, a sea necklace, and a few more treasures, all to celebrate the release of the book.
• Cannon Beach Library
May 8 – 5:30pm – First coastal gathering! Cannon Beach Library presentation, 131 N. Hemlock Street, Canon Beach, OR. Jane’s first event on the Oregon Coast for With the Enduring Tides.
• Cannon Beach History Center and Museum
May 9 – 11:00am-2:00pm – limited space, Register here. A copy of With the Enduring Tides is included with the $55 dollar fee. All proceeds go to the History Center.
• Mothers Day Book Signing
May 10 – 12:00 – 2:00pm – It’s Mother’s Day and a signing at Beach Books, 616 Broadway, Seaside. Bring your mom and come chat with Jane.
• Cloud and Leaf Bookstore | Manzanita
May 10 – 3:00 – 5:00pm – Book Signing
• Annual Letitia Carson Symposium
May 15 – 5:00 – 8:00pm – Third Annual Letitia Carson Symposium, sponsored by Oregon State University, Oregon Black Pioneers, the Letitia Carson Legacy Project, Benton County Historical Society, Corvallis Museum, Corvallis, OR. An optional trip to the Letitia Carson property, 2:00pm – 4:00pm. Register for the event Here.
For those interested in the 2025 symposium highlights, click here to learn more. For those who loved A Light in the Wilderness, the story continues!
• Bend First Presbyterian Church
May 31 – 8:30 and 10am – Jane delivers message on Creativity
• Bowman Museum
June 2 – 6:00 – 8:00pm – Celebrating Stories – yours and mine. Prineville, OR Rescheduled from Last Month.
• Paulina Springs Books
June 9 – 6:30 – 8:00pm – Presentation and signing, rescheduled from the launch date, we’ll have a party anyway! 252 W Hood Avenue, Sisters, OR
• Writing Class & Presentation
June 30 – 1:00 – 3:00pm – Writing Class, and Presentation 6:30-8:00pm, Marten Center, Mondovi, Wisconsin (Jane’s home town). Sponsored by Mondovi Public Library. Snacks by Friends of the Library with Books for Sale by Flora’s Books and Bread (Eau Claire).
Word Whisperings
A Certain Justice
by P.D. James
Vintage Books, 1997
I love a good mystery and PD James was a master. She creates consistent characters one grows to love – Commander Dalgiesh (Scotland Yard) especially. I admit, I’ve read the series before but forgot most of the storylines. I even ordered one on my kindle only to be told I’d already ordered it on almost exactly the same date but in 2007. So I just had to find it on my Kindle App. I loved it even more the second time around. My vocabulary always expands when reading a PD James novel.
Her succinct and pithy character descriptions are a Master Class in characterization. There is always a murder, sometimes two, that are complicated layers of mystery. She has five or six suspects and I almost never know until the very end who did it. A certain Justice is one of those that is set in the justice system of Britain, competition for replacing a retired judge, a skilled defense lawyer – the victim – with her family complications offer suspects; and suspects within the office that she worked in. It’s a slow pace with gorgeous descriptions of room and landscapes that transport one to London and beyond. It helped me fall asleep and kept the time waiting in the doctor’s office quite pleasurable. It’s available in paperback as well. Oh, and she was such a great writer you don’t have to read them in order, just enjoy wherever you plunge in.
Rupie's Renderings
April was quite a month. My mom had some surgery to keep her heart from playing tricks and we are back in Oregon! Mom’s nephew flew from Texas to California to drive me and my mom home to my green-fenced yard, mountain views and cool mornings. I love it though not the two days I was stuck in the back seat with a special seat belt so I won’t become a “projectile missile” in an accident, whatever that is.
The next morning after we got home, I got my mom up at 4:30am anxious to go outside and breath mountain air. She took me out onto the patio, lights on. But she tripped on a little wheelbarrow handle and did what she called a “face plant” onto the lawn. Her knees hit the concrete patio and they look like spots of rose petals. She doesn’t like it if I lick them. I’ve seen lots of plants around here but never one called face. She never let loose of the leash, even while she got herself up, found the lens to her broken glasses and grew this huge knot on her head. Oh and her chin started looking like an eggplant! (not the eggshell kind, but the garden variety kind).
Her nephew said she looked like Jay Leno in profile. Who’s that? After she sent a picture to a friend – a nurse – he insisted she go to the ER. She wanted to wait for a Walmart grocery delivery, but he was adamant. So she got the neighbor to keep an eye out for Walmart and they left me alone. They came back in a couple of hours. All was well. No “brain bleeds” she said; nothing broken. But she complained anyway because her “face ID” won’t work and she has to look up her password to get into her bank. Her granddaughter told her to get some tattoo-covering makeup to cover up the purple. She did that. It helps, I guess, but I don’t really care. She doesn’t need “face ID” to get me to open up and run and play. My passwords are “come-come” and “treats.” I don’t have to look them up at all! I’ll be traveling with her again in a few days. I hope the people she’s going to see on the Oregon coast will recognize her. And the Walmart delivery never arrived. I guess she cancelled it. Probably good. Her face plant without makeup would scare that guy away anyway.
Her nephew flew back to Texas after they hauled me around to the bank, attorney and financial guy getting him onto her “accounts” and arranging things for when she (gulp) dies. I hope that’s a long way away because I’ll miss her but also, I’ll be out of a job watching over her. (Yes, it’s all about me).
Plus, I have a lot of sniffing to do on my walks with her, one of my favorite things. I hope you sniff on your walks too. See you next month. Don’t go planting faces. Woof! Woof!
The Work of Caring
The theme this month appears to be moms and nurses. That’s fitting. The current Administration has determined that nursing is not a profession. Perhaps no one in the federal government has ever needed the skilled, confident care of a nurse whether in the military or comforting a frightened child after an accident or walking a cancer patient through what will happen next. Such a determination, that nursing is not a profession, does affect aspiring nurses from qualifying for Federal educational grants to advance their schooling and might affect advancement and even pay scales. But in truth, no one who has had the need of a nurse’s in-depth training in medicine, pharmaceuticals, administration, managing emergencies, compassion and care, would ever accept that their wound-tenderer was anything less than professional. If you’re inclined, write a letter to a favorite nurse, drop off a box of chocolates at your doctor’s office. Maybe write another letter to the President letting him know that nurses are as professional as doctors and lawyers and the world needs more of these professionals, not fewer. Meanwhile, I hope you don’t need a nurse anytime soon and that your May is filled with blooms and the many scents of spring.
Thank you for traveling with me. Watch your step.
