Part of my personal "Adirondack View" is looking back at my family's past. The summer of 1924 my mother had just graduated from high school. She had chosen nursing as her career. She also had decided to not stay close to home, but to travel to Amsterdam City Hospital near Schenectady, NY to complete her nurses training. This is a newsprint photo of the hospital at that time. I believe the hospital is now called Amsterdam Memorial Hospital and is in a totally new building and locaton.
Nursing students stayed at the house next door to the hospital. Can you see the nurses sitting on the porch?
My mother's class called themslves "The Baseball Nine"... Mom is on the far left.
This photo, Mom again on the left, shows the uniforms of the day.
What do you think about this operating room?
As I remember Mom told me this was the sterilizer. This is one of her friends posing for the picture.
Mom in her "scrubs"...
After she graduated she went on to New York City to do post graduate study at Manhatten Eye and Ear (as it was called then). She lived in NYC for several years sharing an apartment with some of her nursing classmates.
As much as my mother loved nursing, she loved my father more. So after their marriage they settled in a more rural area where my father worked for the local power company. (another story for another day...) There was no large hospital locally so she spent several years doing private duty in her home town. She went on and worked many years as a bookkeeper, assistant librarian in the town library and also as a teacher aide in the school. She was a bright and capable woman. She set a wonderful example for me to follow.
Eliza was my great-great-grandmother. It is dated 1830. There are the usual alphabet letters, and numbers. The last full line reads Eliza Ainger, Westport, NY, Age 13 and the final line is only the year,...1830.
By 9 p.m. it was still snowing light powder, with no indication of freezing rain. This far north we were certainly lucky. 8 inches of fresh powder, the skier's delight!
On the back of this postcard is a note from Inez's sister Vida to my grandmother. I'm sure there was a wonderful story about listening to a radio, but I do not know what it was.
In 1913, on the day before Woodrow Wilson's innauguration, Inez led a suffrage parade in Washington, D.C.
This is the poster for the National Women's Party, featuring an artist's rendition of Inez in that parade in Washington. 
Inez married that year, becoming the bride of Eugen Boissevain. Three years later in 1916 Inez died at the age of 30 while on a speaking tour in California. Several years later Mr. Boissevain married Edna St.Vincent Millay.
A big day for the country yesterday. In our school we had televisions in several locations. I happen to have lunch duty in the cafeteria at the time of President Obama taking the Oath of Office. Here are students in grades 4-6 watching intently as that happened.
The kids were quiet for most of it, fascinated. However, during the speech they clapped and cheered for various points.
