Alex was excited about her debut. She loved going to parties and had envied her older sister all the special events and balls she went to when she came out. Alex had a gregarious nature, and at thirteen, she had sat upstairs on the landing the night of the ball their parents gave her sister, Charlotte, wishing that she could be downstairs dancing with the guests and wearing a fabulous white gown.
Astrid had selected and ordered Alex’s debut dress with her in Paris that summer at Patou. It was a wispy creation in white organza, and Alex couldn’t wait to wear it. She had another one for her own ball, which they had bought in New York. She was going to wear her dark hair swept up for the first time. She had two escorts for the cotillion, as was the tradition, and her private ball was going to be spectacular. It was going to be the most exciting time of her life, and she felt like Cinderella every time she thought about it. What she loved about it was the dancing, the party, and the hundreds of people present when she curtsied. What she didn’t like about it was the idea that she was expected to find a husband, marry within a year or two, and start having babies. It would be even worse if she had to move to Connecticut, as Charlotte had, or to a horse farm in New Jersey and ride all the time. Alex hated horses, and she had no desire to marry for several years. She had known the boys coming to her party since they were in third or fourth grade, and they seemed ridiculous to her. She had no desire for children, or at least not for a long time. She had wanted to go to college, as a few of her more progressive friends had, and her parents had decided it was unnecessary. Neither Alex’s mother nor her sister had gone to college, nor had either of her grandmothers. Her sister Charlotte was perfectly happy never having gone to college, and just being a wife.
Alex had shocked her parents at seventeen, when she volunteered at a well-known hospital, and then at the Foundling Hospital, helping to care for the babies there. Her mother had explained to her that charity work was something you did on a committee, not actually working with the patients or the poor. You did things that benefited them, you didn’t ever actually meet them. Alex had realized then that she was different from her family, and she had no idea why. But she was still excited about her debut. She was eighteen when she came out as a debutante, and although she went to every party she was invited to, and had a wonderful time, she didn’t meet a single boy she thought was interesting, and none of them snagged her heart. It was an exhausting year of constant parties. And by her second season, the war had begun in Europe a few months before in September 1939. Although it didn’t affect any of them personally, it bothered Alex that another deb season had begun, while people were suffering in Europe during a war. That seemed so wrong to her. She had continued her hospital volunteer work despite her mother’s objections. Her father had agreed to let her continue it. And after her second season as a deb, with no engagement in sight, she didn’t want another season. She regretted more than ever not having gone to college, and allowing her parents to talk her out of it. Her mother told her that overeducated women did not appeal to men, which seemed odd to Alex too. Why wouldn’t a man want an educated, intelligent wife, or one with a career?
After her second season, her volunteer work at the hospital no longer seemed like enough to her. Without consulting anyone this time, she signed up for an accelerated course at a nursing school in the city. It was January of 1940, and she was scheduled to graduate in June of 1942. Alex was thrilled with what she’d done. Her mother tried to convince her to withdraw, and her father said it might be simpler if she did, rather than upset her mother, but Alex refused. She was nineteen years old, and her sister suggested that it was some form of belated adolescent rebellion. Whatever the reason for it in the first place, Alex loved her nursing classes and did well.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, Alex had six months of nursing school left and the country was at war. Alex had only one goal after that, which she discussed with no one. She knew what the reaction would be, but she had a mind of her own, and knew how to get what she wanted.
She graduated from nursing school. She was twenty-one years old, and two days after she graduated, she enlisted in the army as a nurse, with the army nurses’ corps. With a war on, it seemed the only right thing to do. She told her parents the same day, and her mother cried all night. Her debut was almost four years behind her by then. There wasn’t a single man in her world that she wanted to marry, and she didn’t see why she should. She’d been happy living with her parents at home in New York all through nursing school. She had gone out with all the men she wanted to, at least once, and found none of them particularly interesting. All she wanted to do was be a nurse and take care of the wounded sent back from the war. There were many of them and would be more. She had a particular interest in psychiatry, which sounded even worse to her parents, if she intended to work in mental hospitals after the war.