Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.Sanger, Margaret
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Margaret Sanger: an autobiography.
Sanger, Margaret
Birth control -- United States -- Biography; Sanger, Margaret, 1879-1966
Though still believing somebody was walking around the place, the doctor
by this time was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, and
returned every night for a week. But the sound was a will-o’-the-wisp.
He never could catch up with it. He was so eager to exhaust every
possibility that he even brought the matter before the board. One of
them patronizingly explained that it was probably the echo from some rat
in the walls; they were in the habit of dismissing thus lightly the
superstitions which clung about the old house.
The doctor continued his detective work until one day he appeared in
great good humor. From the rear windows he pointed to the roof which
rose beyond the high back wall. “I’ve found it. That stable is built on
the same timbers as this house. When some horse grows restless towards
morning he stamps and the vibration is carried through them underground
to this building. Now do you believe in ghosts?”
Life was by no means so serious as all this sounds. Amelia had followed
me into the hospital and we continued our gay times together. For that
matter nursing itself often presented amusing aspects. The supply of
registered nurses was very small, and in our last year of training we
were sent out on private cases, thus seeing both the highlights and
lowlights of life, which prepared us well in experience.
One which had romantic overtones took place immediately after Howard
Willett had transferred his house-party from Aiken, South Carolina, to
Gedney Farms Manor in White Plains. The indisposition of young Eugene
Sugney Reynal was pronounced scarlet fever. The contagion began
spreading among the guests and servants, and Dr. Julius Schmid, old and
honored, a noteworthy figure in the community and also our chief of
staff, detailed three of us nurses for service there, practically
turning the place into a hospital for five weeks.
My special charge was Adelaide Fitzgerald, Reynal’s fiancée, but as
necessity arose we shifted around. Reynal’s condition grew steadily
worse. One morning at daybreak when the patient was almost in a coma Dr.
Schmid sent for the priest to administer extreme unction, and said to
me, “You’d better get Miss Fitzgerald and tell her there’s very little
hope.”
She knelt by his bed, “Gene,” she called to him, “Gene, we’re going to
be married—right now.”
Reynal was as near death as a man could be, but her voice reached into
his subconscious and summoned him back. Another nurse and I, hastily
called upon to act as bridesmaids, stood in starched and rustling white
beside the bed. It was extraordinary to watch; Reynal seemed to shake
himself alive until he was conscious enough to respond “I do” to the
priest who had arrived to perform quite a different office.
As an anti-climax to all the excitement, and to my intense disgust, I
myself came down with a mild attack of scarlet fever. I was so
embarrassed that I went right on working and did not take to my bed
until I actually began to peel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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