Sue Barton

[Calistano]

I have just remembered these books existed. Anyone else used to love them? I was in and out of hospital a lot when I was 12 for a year and became a bit obsessed with the subject. I'm going to have to track them down, didn't realise they were written so long ago.

I have Sue Barton Senior Nurse, Neighbourhood Nurse, Visiting Nurse and Rural Nurse in my collection. Like Cherry Ames, she couldn't hold a nursing job down...

Student
Senior
Visiting
Rural
Superintendent
Neighbourhood
Staff

I can still remember that nearly 40 years on! I loved them all: sensible but fun Sue, occasionally vulnerable but always capable; lovely Bill, with his moustache and calmness; Kit, unflappable and nicely sarcastic; feisty Marianna; motherly Veazie Anne. They were great, rounded out characters and their lives seemed just ordinary enough to be relatable while having plenty of adventure about them. The nursing stories were realistic and not idealised, which I suspect was quite unusual at the time. Working women were the norm. Sue’s time in Harlem gave us an insight into a much less cosy world, but never in a judgy or mawkish way. I think they’d be great reading for teen girls now.

I really liked them too. What I learned only fairly recently, on reading a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder (of Little House on The Prairie fame) was that Helen Dore Boylston was the boon companion of Wilder's daughter, Rose Wilder Lane (very much a character to be reckoned with herself).

I had them all in the mid 80s. I remember the woman in the cover 'being Sue' had the most gorgeous auburn hair!!

As she should do! Sue’s ‘coppery curls’ featured quite often, and I was disappointed that the 80s covers had that model, with a helmet of very lovely, but very straight hair!

I loved those books way back too. My mum used to tell me her stories from when was a trainee nurse and midwife.

Those and Andre Norton's Octagon Magic were my go-to's the years I was 12/13.

😊

They were my first "grown up" books from the library. They were kept in the children's section, but in the bit right next to the adults' bit.
I can still see the covers and Sue's hair now 😂 and remember being utterly terrified I was going to be more unlucky than Sue and die of a burst appendix. (I recall Donny Osmond having one as well around the time Sue was scaring me!)

Yes, I had all the Cherry Ames books too

Oh my - that has brought back some happy memories! I'm going to have to send my Mum on a hunt in my old bedroom 😂

I loved Sue Barton too, which book was it where they lived in the haunted house? Sue was incredibly brave and sat on the stairs in the middle of the night to see the ghost! Turned out to be a young runaway who they took under their wings and she also became a nurse. I just remember being in awe of her bravery as I was absolutely terrified of ghosts 👻

I loved these, and bought them all for myself with the 80s covers a few years ago. Now DD loves them too, and we go back quite often for comfort reads.

Bill is a little too perfectly Gilbert Blythe - the blank slate who likes feisty intelligent redheads that girls can project all their emotions onto - but I loved him anyway.

@Terpsichore Was that Prairie Fires? I thought that was so interesting, and noticed Boylston in it. I'm not sure I warmed to Rose very much.

@LadyPeterWimsey yes, that’s right! Very interesting. And Rose was indeed a piece of work….no scruples about using people then dropping them like a hot brick when it suited her.

Oh I used to love those books! My favourites were the one in NY and the one in New Hampshire where Bill was getting framed for the typhoid outbreak. Must reread them (although that is always a risk!).

Loved these! Pretty sure I still have them somewhere!

I'm a Historian, who loved these as a child. I've still got them all (and half the Cherry Ames books, but I didn't like her as much as Sue!)

Helen Dore Boylston, who wrote them, was a qualified nurse who nursed on the Western Front in WW1.

Loved them. It was from Sue Barton that I learned that if you lived on the street a few newspapers on top of you helped to keep you warm. Well, I think it was from Sue Barton.