Nurse Romance Stories: Young Love 51 - "The Will to Love"

In this November 1953 nurse romance story, an attempted suicide is brought into the hospital. From his ramblings the attending nurse deduces that he'd been ditched by his girl and subsequently not felt life was worth living. At first to help him, but then also because she has fallen in love with him, she pretends to be his girl. She finds the girl, and gets her to come into the hospital to help, but he's just not that sort of person. She really is no longer interested in him since he gave their money to a friend in need. I'll let you read the rest to find out how it ends!

I found this a heart-warming tale of innocence and true love. I thought it was interesting how the protagonist described nursing - having to be cold and impersonal to maintain sufficient detachment in order to do the job.

A Twist in the Tale - Thank Goodness it Went Out of Fashion?

The issues of Young Love leading up to the death of Prize and the taking over of the title by DC are a strange lot. There are, however, some pleasant surprises here and there, like "The Twisters Led Me To Temptation". The cover to Prize's Young Love V.6 #2 (Aug/Sept 1962) attempts to convince the reader that there's a connection between doing the twist and some form of debased lifestyle, but as the story begins there's no hint of this revelation. The art in these issues from what was actually Prize's reboot of the title after a 4 year absence (I have a few in my collection) is a little different - the Simon and Kirby influence seems gone - but it kind of grows on you, with a little contemplation. Anyway this particular story starts with Kathy, a very bored teenager, looking for a "charge" out of life and not finding it in parties, fast cars, or fast guys. Incidentally, I don't think the claim at the top of the first page of the story, that Elvis started the twist, is accurate.

 Taking her parents' advice, Kathy gets a job, then another, and another - they're all boring too, and so are the dull parties she continues to attend, having nothing better to do. And it's there that she runs into Jim Parker, the guy who will change her life. He's a drummer in a band and has a nice pink car. Jim takes Kathy to his workplace, the Three Pines, a bar with a dance floor and an eclectic clientele that "ranged from beatniks to mink-clad dowagers". It's when Jim's band starts up that the resident Chubby Checker wannabe, Porky, a somewhat robustly proportioned individual, takes to the floor to get everybody started on the twist. Kathy joins in and is an instant hit, all eyes diverted from Porky to her. Porky and his partner reckon they might be onto something if they can get Kathy on board. Jim drives Kathy home and gives her a passionate goodnight kiss. Is this the love Kathy needed to liven up her life?

Kathy becomes a regular at the Three Pines and inevitably Porky asks her to work for him and Lucky, because she'll bring in the teenage crowd (the twist was apparently the first modern dance popular with both teenagers and adults). Lucky is a little hesitant about employing Kathy, until Porky explains that the kids will provide a smoke screen for their illegal gambling activities in the back of the joint. Jim has his suspicions that Porky and Lucky are using Kathy, and tries to dissuade her from taking the job, but she's an independent young woman and makes up her own mind to go ahead - why not get paid for what she likes to do? But Porky has a big gambling occasion lined up, and he's using a twist event led by Kathy as a cover. Even Kathy starts to get nervous.

Inevitably the place gets busted and Kathy ends up arrested and on the front page of the newspaper. But the judge is a reasonable guy and gives her a talking to instead of sending her down, plus he wants her to teach his wife and daughters how to do the twist! Kathy just made some bad choices about where she hung out and with whom, and that's the little lesson she finishes with as she signs off with her message to the readers.

So the story has some elements that lend an air of familiarity to the tale, but also some subculture and moment-in-history-specific details that give it a unique blend. Oh the early 1960s - what wouldn't I give to be able to go back and twist again!

Nurse Romance Stories: Young Love 41

Third in the DC series of Young Love and The Private Diary of Mary Robin, R.N., issue 41 features a nurse romance story, "No Tomorrow For My Heart", that hits right at the heart of nursing stereotypes present in the 1960s media.

Mary exemplifies the self-sacrificing angel image of nurses that hearkens back to the origins of the profession itself - she puts her dedication to her work before romance and marriage. This story is unusual, however, in that it points out an important reality for female nurses, that they have to expect amorous reactions from male patients for whom they have cared, as a kind of hazard of the job. And although the self-sacrificing angel is a stereotype, where there's smoke there's fire as they say, and there is an element to nursing that demands a dedication to the job because it is a helping profession. Importantly, this is something that a potential mate for a nurse would do well to understand. A nurse married to a man who doesn't see this about nursing is likely to experience problems when her husband starts feeling that he's being sidelined by his wife's job.

So when Mary backs out of the chance to marry Ray, realizing that she needs a man who understands and accepts her commitment to nursing, it puts the book in a kind of advice-giving category. Even with the changes that have taken place in the nursing profession since the 60s, and there have been big changes, this much is still true about nursing for most. If you're a nurse, you need your partner's support because it is a demanding, although rewarding profession (see the responses Mary receives from various patients, that do somewhat reflect reality).

Mary's real interest is in Dr. Will Ames, which tends to support another media stereotype of nurses from the period, that women become nurses so that they can marry a doctor. However, even though Will is clearly interested in Mary, the two haven't figured out a way for their relationship to move forward in a mutually acceptable way that also harmonizes with their work commitments. In an old style heterosexual patriarchy, where the woman stays at home and the man goes out to work, this problem is of a different nature.

But then Mary goes and falls in love with her patient, violating professional ethical conduct, and at the same time reinforcing another old media stereotype of nurses, that they are these vulnerable women who can easily be romanced by male patients, and that a hospital stay for a man equates to an opportunity to become romantically involved with a nurse. The suggestion here is that nurses are 'available', and with further exaggeration this notion evolves elsewhere into the 'naughty nurse' image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pencil artwork is by John Romita, Sr.

Young Love 39 cover

When DC took over Young Love and Young Romance in 1963, the continuing cover story lines for both books featured women from female gendered professions: nurses and airline stewardesses. Both were drawn by John Romita, Sr. Regular features of this sort were not common in romance comics, because the focus of romance stories is usually on the culmination of the search for that perfect true love. Once that's over the comic is done with that story and moves on to another. So to have the same protagonist appear each month in a romance comic was somewhat of a novelty but one not unique to DC. In fact, Charlton had already been publishing several ongoing nurse romance series, which might have been the impetus for this one by DC. The cover of this first one is easy to interpret. Mary is in love with the doctor, but the doctor is the subject of the romantic attentions of his female patient, while the professional setting makes things more complicated. But there's also a 1960s media stereotype of nurses here - that of the doctor's handmaiden. The nurse provides the bulk of the care while the doctor waltzes in now and again and soaks up all the credit.