* * *
—
Lizzie called in sick to work the next day and went to the recruiting office. It was jammed, and she had a three-hour wait before they called her number. She signed up and filled out all the papers she had to. She had brought her nursing certificate with her, and proof that she had graduated as a registered nurse. They told her to come back in two weeks for her physical. She would be notified after that if she was acceptable to be inducted into the army, then given a date to report for four weeks of instruction and training in military protocol and procedures. She would be sent to a military base after that. It all sounded very simple and very direct. She notified the hospital the next day, and told them that her leaving would depend on whether she passed the army physical, but there was no reason why she shouldn’t. She was athletic and in good health. The nursing supervisor was impressed when Lizzie told her she had enlisted.
“I guess others will too eventually. It’s brave of you, Elizabeth.”
“Not really,” Lizzie said quietly. “It just felt like the right thing to do, for a lot of reasons.”
She called Audrey and told her that night.
“I just hope they don’t send you anywhere too far away,” or where she’d be in danger. Audrey hoped they’d keep her in the States. Lizzie thought it was likely they would, but she was willing to go anywhere. “I’m going to miss you, if I can’t see you.” Audrey doubted that she’d be able to leave her mother again. Ellen’s health had deteriorated sharply since Will’s death. The shock of it had hit her hard.
“Will I have to salute when I see you?” Audrey teased her, trying to make light of it. She was sad thinking about Lizzie going away.
“I’m not even sure that nurses get a rank. And no one’s going to get rich on the pay. I think the people doing it, like me, are doing it because they figure they owe it to our country. And someone will have to take care of the wounded, so it might as well be me. There’s no glory in it, and no glamour, from everything I’ve heard. It’s a lot of hard work. That’s what I need right now.” They both knew she had a broken heart, and she was trying to put it to good use, to serve others. There was merit in that. It was an ugly war, and it had already cost them both too much.
Chapter 5
When Audrey and Lizzie had entered nursing school in September 1938, earnestly intending to apply themselves to their nursing studies, Alexandra Whitman White was on the cusp of the most exciting time of her life. An aristocratic, almost regal-looking, statuesque blonde with striking, movie star good looks, she was preparing for her first official social season in New York. Related to Astors and Vanderbilts on both sides, with Morgan cousins, and distantly related to the Roosevelts, she was going to be presented to society at the same cotillion where her mother and grandmother had come out. In the week after the cotillion, her parents would be giving her her own private ball in their mansion on Fifth Avenue. Her sister Charlotte had gone through the same process five years earlier, with considerable success. She had met her future husband at a friend’s coming-out ball in the same season. They were engaged within six months, married the following Christmas, and were now happily married with three little girls.
The purpose of making one’s debut in previous centuries was to bring young ladies out of the seclusion of the “schoolroom” at home and help them find suitable husbands in the same social set. It was the accepted way of finding a husband then, and some brilliant matches—and equally brilliant and often lucrative mergers between important wealthy families—were made. The couples barely knew each other when they married. A similar system had existed in England for centuries, among the aristocracy. Ideally, there were no unfortunate surprises, and decent marriages were the result, although that wasn’t always the case. Alex White’s older sister, Charlotte, was very happy with her husband, a prominent New York banker from a blue-blooded family like theirs. Alex and Charlotte’s father, Robert White, was a banker too. Banking was thought to be the only truly respectable career for a gentleman. None of the women of Alex’s mother’s generation worked. They had no reason to, and it would have been considered inappropriate. The few women who had jobs or careers were severely criticized, and they rarely married. Nothing in their earlier education had prepared them to work. It was considered more important for them to have a solid understanding of art, appreciate theater, opera, and the ballet, run an elegant home, and speak several languages. Alex spoke fluent French, and passable German and Italian, taught to her by her nannies while she was growing up. Her mother, Astrid, and her friends were involved in charitable committees to benefit those less fortunate. It was a value system based on traditions that had existed for generations.