Stepping over Rooftops

Mary F. Belmont

Description

The historical tale of a young Italian nurse trainee’s journey into adulthood as she works alongside patients, teachers, and other students to contribute to the promise of America through healthcare.

It is 1892 and most young women from poor immigrant families have little choice about their futures. Many spend long days working in crowded garment factories, earning just pennies a day. Most are expected to marry and produce children while helping family businesses and caring for aging relatives. Only a lucky few are selected to enter nurses’ training in New York City’s Lower East Side during an era of mass immigration.



Eighteen-year-old Rosa Campo is the daughter of Italian immigrants and one of the lucky few chosen to train to become a nurse. While she progresses through her professional journey to save the life of an abandoned newborn and grieve with an older Jewish man whose wife passes away unexpectedly, Rosa befriends another student, Jade Ling, born in America to Chinese immigrants. As they learn to step from rooftop to rooftop when caring for poor patients who live on the least expensive top floor, Rosa and the other nurses diligently work to fulfill their dreams of healing and changing the world by advocating for healthcare for the underserved.



Stepping Over Rooftops is the historical tale of a young Italian nurse trainee’s journey into adulthood as she works alongside patients, teachers, and other students to contribute to the promise of America through healthcare.

Sujets

• Young Adult Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 24 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665732499
• Langue: English

Extrait

STEPPING OVER ROOFTOPS
 
HEALTH CARE DURING THE ERA OF MASS IMMIGRATION TO AMERICA
 
 
 
 
 
MARY F. BELMONT
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
Copyright © 2022 Mary F. Belmont.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Interior Image Credit: Scott C. Schwartz, MD
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3248-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3249-9 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022919981
 
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 11/23/2022
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 1 Giovanni Campo
Chapter 2 Our Housemother, Miss Iris Longridge
Chapter 3 The Welcoming Ceremony, Jade Ling
Chapter 4 The Classroom
Chapter 5 The Tenements
Chapter 6 A Newborn
Chapter 7 Mr. Lininger
Chapter 8 The Accused
Chapter 9 Liam Ryan’s Story
Chapter 10 The Confession
Chapter 11 The End of Summer
Epilogue
About the Author
To graduates of the class of 1892
Acknowledgments
The writing of this book was supported by several friends, especially Linda Vecchioti Saal of class of 1971A and Kim McNally Becker, RN. Antonina and John Campo helped to authenticate the cultures of Sicily and New York’s Little Italy. My junior reader was Ms. Cally Petroske. A best friend who sent frequent messages from London to “get on with it” was Dr. Christopher DeHamel. For the ten years of encouragement needed to complete this book, I love and thank my amazing, life partner Scott C. Schwartz, MD.
Introduction
When helping gather material for a factual history of Cornell University New York Hospital School of Nursing, I thought of a historical novel based on the letters, official documents, and photographs that told fascinating stories of the students themselves, especially of the class of 1892. Other than entering a religious order, most young women from poor immigrant families living in nineteenth-century cities had little choice about and precious few opportunities to direct their own future. Many spent twelve-hour days operating sewing machines or beading handbags in crowded sweat-shop garment factories, earning just pennies each day. Most were expected to marry and produce children to help in family businesses while also caring for aged parents and unmarried relatives. Just a few were selected to enter nurses’ training in New York City.
There are certain rites of passage most nurses experience when becoming fully qualified to practice. I have tried to describe the best and most difficult of these in the stories of these real young women. Each character and story belongs to a woman of the past, except for one—because one story is my own.
Prologue
CADET TRAINING
Amanda will not be able to go home during her first year of studies, and while this is not her first time away from her family, it will be the longest she will spend alone. As she boarded her flight to headquarters this morning, her mother gently placed a package in Amanda’s hands. It was about the size of an old-fashioned book, something rarely seen any more, except in museum libraries. Wrapped in an exquisite piece of very old hand-crocheted lace and tied with a soft golden ribbon, the package had a faint but distinct scent of lavender belonging to a bygone era. Amanda stood frozen in time as she held the delicate package, for she sensed this was a special moment in her life.
“Keep this forever, Amy.” She heard her mother’s voice quietly resonating as if three other voices from a distance had joined in. “You have wanted to be a nurse ever since you were a little girl and heard stories about your great-great-grandmother Rosa. She kept a journal from the day she began her studies at the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1889. She was a pioneer, just as you will be. When the days come, and they surely will, that you question why you chose to work with the sick and suffering, read this diary to know how blessed you are to have made this decision.”
It is January 2045, just two decades after the first successful manned space flight to the planet Mars. A quantum leap in technology occurred with that accomplishment, vastly changing humanity’s ability to travel into outer space. Just about everything else on Earth changed, as well—some things for better, others for worse.
It is exciting and, at the same time, frightening to be seventeen years old. Amanda has just arrived at headquarters for the Aerospace Nursing Cadet Corps, hoping to be selected as one of the nurses who will establish an intergalactic health station at the furthest reaches of our universe.
Before being considered for the cadet corps, all students were required to first qualify in astronautics, which Amanda did before the age of fifteen, having completed many more than the required ten flying missions to the moon. On at least three flights, she’d managed the rocket controls from start to finish with no criticisms from her pilot instructor. Amanda had been to Mars—well, only twice while vacationing with her parents, but it had been enough to explode her imagination with fantasies of a future career in outer space.
Now she takes on her greatest challenge yet: completing the four-year college program that will qualify her to be a nurse.
1

GIOVANNI CAMPO
G iovanni Campo was the sort of handsome that made women of all ages feel special whenever he tilted his head in their direction and gave a wide smile of pleasant recognition. His deep chestnut-brown eyes were as splendid and enchanting as the sumptuous tones of his baritone voice when he bid every lady, “Good day, Signora,” on his walk to the cabinet shop each morning. What made Giovanni ever so endearing was that he truly loved his life in spite of the many hardships he has faced since his childhood in Sicily—a major island off the west coast of Italy. He made a point of looking directly at every person as he spoke to him or her. It was his way of showing respect to all members of the immigrant population that swelled the streets in this poorest section of New York City.
Each day after leaving his modest brownstone home on the Lower East Side, he stopped at the corner florist shop to buy one yellow rose. Rain or shine, he carefully carried the yellow rose to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church where he placed the flower before the marble statue of the Blessed Mother and offer a prayer of thanks for his happiness and good fortune. Turning about to walk back down the gray stone aisle, he glanced to the right at a statue of Saint Francis, the patron saint of the ancient Italian city of Assisi. A favorite saint of his boyhood, Giovanni always felt warmness toward Saint Francis, who protected animals and was able to understand their languages. Today Giovanni was filled with even more joy than usual as he reverently bowed his head to the patron of Assisi.
As a little boy, Giovanni had entertained himself by sitting on the curb of the cobblestone street outside his family’s two-room home in Novara di Sicilia. He had sometimes stayed there for hours, carving little figures from whatever pieces of soft wood he could find lying about. At the same time, he had entertained passersby with his captivating voice, singing melodies he’d learned as a church choirboy. The shiny pocketknife he’d used to create new life from discarded scraps of wood had been a gift from his father, a modest cobbler in the small town. While his papa had been an expert shoemaker, business was meager throughout most of the Italian city-states, as civil and political wars were being waged to unite the country. As with most young boys in Novara di Sicilia, when Giovanni had reached the age of twelve, he’d been expected to begin an apprenticeship in some craft that would sustain him throughout life. He would have begun working in his papa’s shop had not fate, or perhaps the Blessed Mother, stepped in to change his entire world.
 

Giovanni Campo as a young boy in Sicily
A wealthy patrician from Messina, the nearest large city, visited Papa’s shop one day after damaging his favorite dress shoes. There was excitement throughout the street as Viscount Scarlatti’s carriage rolled past small shops and cafes.
“Why would such an elegant carriage be stopping in front of the cobbler’s shop?” mused the curious neighbors.
Out stepped a middle-aged man—a gentleman to be sure. He was dressed in a charcoal-gray morning coat and black trousers made from the finest Medici wool. A silk cravat with alternating cream and burgundy stripes accented his pure-white linen shirt. His valet, Edwardo, carried the damaged shoes and assisted the viscount into