“I had already been a lot of things in my young life - vaudeville performer, dance instructor, waitress, dishwasher, pants presser, babysitter. And other things I won’t mention. Mostly, I was always what Mamie, my mother, needed me to be to earn money. Today was the first day of the life that I chose. By some miracle, I had won a scholarship to study at St. Mary’s Hospital of Nursing located in Galveston.”