Simply Nell

I cannot write about my life without including this story of a girl called “Nell”.

When I was a child and I would go to Grandma Higdon’s house, there was a photograph on her dresser (the dresser was one that dipped in the middle and the sides were higher; the mirror had three sections also).  The photograph sat on one side on top of a little doily.  I was always so intrigued by that photograph, and 60-some-odd years later I can still see it in my mind as though it is today.

When I was little I would always ask who that was.  They always replied that it was “your Aunt Margaret’s friend, Nell”.  The photograph was of a beautiful young girl in a nurse’s uniform, a blue cape, and a stark white starched cap with a black ribbon.  This showed that she was an RN.  She had really blue eyes and soft brown hair.  When they replied that she was my aunt’s friend they also would tell me that she and Aunt Margaret helped to deliver me at the hospital and the two of them named me.

When I was older and a teenager, I was told the story of Nell.  They said she almost quit nursing because of a young, beautiful woman who was admitted to the hospital.  The woman had been in a car wreck and they had to amputate an arm.  She told them the girl had long red nails, and she would never forget the sound the arm made when it fell into the pillow case.

The doctor that delivered me and Nell had an affair.  He was married and had planned on marrying Nell, but his little child got real sick and he didn’t leave his wife.  This is the story that was told, but you know how that goes.  Well, Nell had a little baby girl by him.  The girl would be close to my age now.  Nell died when the child was really young, and Nell’s mother raised her.  She did carry her father’s name, though.  I saw her as a teenager at one of our high-school functions that was at her school.  She was well-known because she was so beautiful, and I think she won a beauty contest.

I wish I could write well – I so would write a novel of this story!