Helen Dore Boylston

Infobox Writer
name = Helen Dore Boylston


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birthdate = April 4 1895
birthplace = Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States
deathdate = September 30 1984
deathplace = Trumbull, Connecticut, United States
occupation = Nurse, Writer
nationality = American
period = 1925-1955
genre = Memoir, Young Adult fiction and non-fiction
subject = Nursing, Acting
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Helen Dore Boylston (April 4 1895 - September 30 1984) was the American author of the popular "Sue Barton" nurse series and Carol Page actor series.cite news |title=Helen Dore Boylston Is Dead; Author of 'Sue Barton' Series |publisher=The New York Times |date=1984-10-05 |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CE7D7123BF936A35753C1A962948260 |accessdate=2007-07-25]

Born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Boylston spent her childhood there, leaving to attend Simmons College in Boston for a year.cite web |title=Helen Dore Boylston: Nurse From New Hampshire |url=http://www.elliemik.com/boylston.html |accessdate =2007-07-25] She thought of studying medicine like her father, but chose nursing since the training was shorter.cite journal |last=Philips |first=Deborah |title=Healthy Heroines: Sue Barton, Lillian Wald, Lavinia Lloyd Dock and the Henry Street Settlement |journal=Journal of American Studies |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=pp. 65–82 |year=1999 |accessdate=2007-07-24 |doi=10.1017/S0021875898006070] cite book | last =Allcock | first =John B. | coauthors = Young, Antonia | title = Black Lambs & Grey Falcons: Women Travelers in the Balkans | publisher = Berghahn Books | date =1991 | location =
pages =pp.108-9 | url = | doi =| id = | isbn = 978-1571817440] She graduated as a nurse from Massachusetts General Hospital in 1915cite journal |last=Ashenburg |first=Katherine |title=Sue Barton and Me |journal=The American Scholar |volume=72 |issue=3 |pages=pp. 137–141 |date=Summer 2003 |accessdate=2007-07-24] and sailed for France to serve in the First World War with the Harvard Medical Unit, as part of the British Expeditionary Force. She nursed the wounded at a front-line field hospital,cite book | last =Boylston | first =Helen Dore | title = Sister: The War Diary of a Nurse | publisher = Washburn | date =1927 | location =
pages = | url = | doi =| id = | isbn = ] specializing as an anesthesiologist and reaching the rank of captain. Boylston wrote about her experiences in "Sister: The War Diary of a Nurse," which was published in 1927.

After the 1918 Armistice, Boylston remained in Europe working for the Red Cross for two years providing services to civilians in Albania, Poland, Russia, Italy, and Germany.cite book | last =Silvey | first =Anita | title = Children's Books and Their Creators | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | date =1995 | location =
pages =pp.76-77 | url = | doi =| id = | isbn = 0395653800] cite web |last=Hughes |first=Cynthia Cardon |title=Helen Dore Boylston: Clinician, Administrator, Popular Author: A Life in Leadership |publisher=The Institute for Nursing Healthcare Leadership |url=http://www.inhl.org/inhl/links/profiles/boylston/bio.html |accessdate=2008-03-05] During periods in the United States, Boylston worked as the head of an outpatient department and as an instructor in anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well a psychiatric nurse in New York City and a head nurse in a Connecticut hospital, experiences she was to mine in future books. Between 1921 and 1924 she worked again with the Red Cross.

Boylston met reporter Rose Wilder Lane, daughter of the not-yet-famous Laura Ingalls Wilder on a train between Paris and Warsaw. Boylston was still anxious for adventure and wrote to a friend "Daddy wants me to settle down, but I'm young! I'm young! Why shouldn't I live? What is old age if it has no memories except of 40 years or so of blank days?" In 1926 Lane, Boylston and their French maid traveled from Paris to Albania in a car they named "Zenobia", planning to live in Albania and earn their living by writing. An account of the journey, called "Travels With Zenobia: Paris to Albania by Model T Ford" was published in 1983.

Boylston lived in Tirana, Albania for two years, and according to her publisher "once made the Albanian Prime Minister carry her trunk off the boat and tried to tip him, not knowing who he was." She was also "shot at for two hours in a ditch in southern Albania, owing to a mistake in identity". While there, Boylston assisted at an Albanian school of nursing that was directed by a fellow graduate from the School of Nursing at Massachusetts General Hospital. After two years, she saw a picture of a baked potato in a magazine, and feeling homesick, returned to the US.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Boylston began writing and publishing stories more seriously. She published articles and stories in "The Atlantic Monthly", "Harper's", and "Argosy", and wrote a radio script for the Canadian Broadcasting Company, as well as a reminiscence of her student nursing days in the American Journal of Nursing. [cite journal |last=Boylston |first=Helen Dore |title=Christmas reveries |journal=American Journal of Nursing |volume=25 |issue=12 |pages=pp. 997–998 |month=December |year=1925 |accessdate=2007-07-25 |doi=10.2307/3409629]

In 1936 Boylston published "Sue Barton: Student Nurse", the first of her seven Sue Barton books. The books followed the career of a red-haired nurse as she progressed through her training, career, marriage and motherhood, and sought to maintain her independence. The books were highly successful, selling millions of copies in English and translations. The books have remained in print ever since.

With Sue Barton married to Bill Barry and expecting her first baby in "Sue Barton: Superintendent Nurse", Boylston began a new series about another career woman, this time an actress Carol Page. She incorporated the advice and experience of Eva Le Gallienne, her friend and neighbor. Boylston later returned to Sue Barton, publishing the final two books in the series "Sue Barton: Neighborhood Nurse" and "Sue Barton: Staff Nurse" in 1949 and 1952 respectively. In 1955, Boylston published "Clara Barton: Founder of the American Red Cross", a biography for young adults of Civil War nurse Clara Barton.

Boylston never married. She died in Trumbull, Connecticut at the age of 89, leaving no known relatives.

Works

* Sister: The War Diary of a Nurse (1927)
* Sue Barton, Student Nurse (1936)
* Sue Barton, Senior Nurse (1937)
* Sue Barton, Visiting Nurse (1938)
* Sue Barton, Rural Nurse (1939)
* Sue Barton, Superintendent of Nurses (1940)
* Sue Barton, Neighborhood Nurse (1949)
* Sue Barton, Staff Nurse(1952)
* Carol Goes Backstage (1941)
* Carol Plays Summer Stock (1942)
* Carol on Broadway (1944)
* Carol on Tour (1946)
* Clara Barton: Founder of American Red Cross (1955 and 1963)
* Travels With Zenobia: Paris to Albania by Model T Ford (with Rose Wilder Lane) (1983)

References