Amelia Earhart, Nurse's Aide

Ainsley Smith
2 days ago
5 min read

by Ainsley Smith

Amelia Earhart in her Nurse's Aide Uniform -- Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

Amelia Earhart is primarily known as an aviatrix who broke records and soared above her contemporaries in recognition and celebrity. Her story is often portrayed as tragic and shrouded in mystery, but her aviation career and subsequent disappearance are only the tip of the iceberg of Amelia’s long list of occupations and accomplishments. Amelia was a true student of the world, and her life was filled with periods of exploration, adventure, and public service.

One such period and the subject of this article was Amelia’s career in nursing. During World War I, Amelia went to Toronto to visit her sister Muriel at St Margaret’s College, and the visit was such an affecting and pivotal moment that she includes it in her first two books (1):

There for the first time I realized what the World War meant. Instead of new uniforms and brass bands, I saw only the results of a four years’ desperate struggle; men without arms and legs, men who were paralyzed and men who were blind (2).

[The war] so completely changed the direction of my own footsteps that the details of those days remain indelible in my memory, trivial as they appear when recorded (3).

Witnessing the hardship and physical toll of the war was difficult for Amelia, and she knew immediately that she wanted to become a nurse’s aid, even if it meant leaving school (4). Upon moving to Toronto, Amelia enrolled in a first aid course by the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the St. John Ambulance Brigade and became first aid certified. She took a home nursing course by the St. John Ambulance Brigade and took in all the information she could, even supplementing her knowledge with non-compulsory courses (5). Amelia first worked as a nurse’s aid in the children’s wing at Victoria Memorial Hospital, but she was soon transferred to Spadina Military Hospital because of her spectacular focus and unfazed reactions to injury and chaos (6). At the hospital, Amelia worked in the laboratory and helped serve meals to patients, and her schedule was a grueling 7:00am to 7:00pm with two hours off. She cheekily recalls being placed in the kitchen and dispensary “because I knew a little chemistry. Probably the fact that I could be trusted not to drink up the medical supply of whisky counted more than the chemistry (7).”

Shrapnel Corners -- City of Toronto Archives

While in Toronto, Amelia used her limited spare time to seek out more adventures. She writes, “I believe it was during the winter of 1918 that I became interested in airplanes … I hung around [airfields] in spare time and absorbed all I could (8).” She often visited the Armour Heights airfield in Toronto to watch the airplanes, sometimes standing close enough that the propellers flung snow into her face. One incident at a Toronto fair ignited Amelia’s desire to fly, when a war ace pilot dove at the crowd: “I remember the mingled fear and pleasure which surged over me as I watched … I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by (9).”

Throughout her time at the hospital, Amelia managed to avoid sickness, but her luck ran out when she was transferred to an overcrowded pneumonia ward. Amelia continued to work through a deadly influenza epidemic until she finally fell ill and had to undergo surgery to drain a “pneumonococcal bacterial infection in her frontal antrum (10).” She recognized her illness as due to her nonstop mentality, “trying to carry on all day as usual and work all night … The result was several minor operations and a rather long period of convalescence (11).” The illness was serious enough that Amelia left Toronto, moving to Massachusetts with her mother and sister to recover. The recovery took months and the infection continued to give her problems for years afterward, but she left Toronto with no regrets: “I hope what we did was helpful. Somebody had to do it (12).” The experience of working in Toronto was pivotal for Amelia and even after moving to Massachusetts, she continued on the path of medicine.

Armour Heights Aerodrome -- Toronto Canadian Forces Command and Staff College

Though she was in Massachusetts to recover, Amelia wasted no time getting back to her passion for medical care. She took an ambulance driving class from Smith College, where she learned about car mechanics and how to repair vehicles, “which laid the foundation of any practical knowledge of motors I have gained since (13).” Amelia decided then that she would like to be a doctor, because it was a “life of the mind, combined with a life of purpose and action,” and in 1919 she registered at Columbia University in the University Extension Program– signing up for the maximum course load, of course (14).

Amelia’s studies at Columbia included a wide range of subjects and plenty of exploration. She writes, “I took what I could of all the ‘ologies’ which should help toward [medicine] … As usual I had a good time, though I studied hard and didn’t have any too much money (15).” Although she maintained a B+ average and earned 38 credits, after one year, Amelia quit university (16). While she gave a number of reasons for quitting, she recalls finding herself ill-suited to becoming a doctor because she couldn’t picture herself granting hypochondriacs sugar pills to soothe “an imaginary illness … I did not see then that there was just as much of a problem in curing the somewhat mentally ill as those physically so … But when you are young, you are apt to make important decisions for reasons that later on seem quite superficial (17).” Amelia’s reflection on the memory is very self-aware, however, she also mentions that her parents begged her to live with them in Los Angeles, and as an unmarried woman, she likely felt obligated to do as her parents asked (18).

Regardless of her reasoning for doing so, Amelia quit medical school and moved to Los Angeles with the desire to continue studying medical science in California, but, she recalls, “I did not get into the swing of the western universities before aviation caught me (19).” Thus was the end of Amelia’s medical career, and the beginning of a new passion: flying.

Endnotes

Susan Butler, East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart, 82.
Amelia Earhart, The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation, 19.
Amelia Earhart, 20 Hrs. 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship, 5.
Earhart, The Fun of It, 19.
Butler, 83-4.
Butler, 84.
Earhart, The Fun of It, 20.
Ibid.
Butler, 85.
Butler, 86.
Earhart, The Fun of It, 21.
Butler, 86; Earhart, 20 Hrs. 40 Min., 5.
Earhart, The Fun of It, 21.
Butler, 87-8.
Earhart, The Fun of It, 21.
Butler, 89.
Earhart, The Fun of It, 23.
Earhart, The Fun of It, 24.
Ibid.