Spit and Polish

Ruth was delighted to enter nursing school at Kingston General Hospital. Nursing had to be a better life than staying in her tiny town, marrying a local boy, and raising a large family for her father's church. Struggling at first, she is sent to the local Tuberculosis Sanatorium to build up her skills. It's 1946, and the San is overflowing with wounded and returning soldiers, women, and children. Ruth must find her way among the dying, depressed, and sometimes too friendly patients, as well as demanding doctors and a jealous mentor - without getting sent home, infected, or forced into marriage. And she still hopes to make her way back into nursing school. Brown draws on her own experiences as a nursing student at Queens University (decades later) and extensive research to vividly illustrate the challenges of mid-century health care.