"My parents did not have the money for me to go to college," she recalls, and there was little talk of anything other than getting a job when she graduated from high school in 1944. If she had the opportunity to pursue a career, it would have been nursing.
Her life took a dramatic change for the better when, faced with a critical shortage of nurses throughout civilian and military hospitals, the U. S. Government initiated the Victory Nurse Corps, later renamed the Cadet Nurse Corps. For those willing to accept the demands of an accelerated training program while working the wards of the teaching hospital, the Victory Nurse Corps offered a monthly stipend of $15 that would increase to $20 per month after the first year and $25 thereafter.
She entered nurses training at Mass Memorial Hospitals, now part of New England Medical. "The hospital provided our white uniforms to wear while on duty," she recalls, "and the Cadet Nurse Corps provided our brown dress uniforms." They would be the youngest of uniformed participants in the war effort.
Betty Jefferson Truax in her Cadet Nurse Corps uniform at the start of a
lifelong career in nursing.
She had a scheduled break between shifts and studies, but it seldom seemed to work out that way with patient care taking longer than expected and studies demanding a constant effort from the students. "The wards were enormous," she said of the hospital, "and student nurses were running the floors."
As her studies were winding down, so was the war, but that did
not lessen the need for more nurses and they were always in demand with
shifts available around the clock.
Receiving her diploma in 1944, she remained with Mass Memorial and was
assigned to the outpatient department. She would later marry and, together
with her husband lived with her mother-in-law. She continued full time with
the hospital until pregnant with her first child. She eventually returned to
work on a part time basis at Glover Hospital in Needham. "I worked the 3 to
11 shift on Saturday and was paid $9 for the shift."
She finally found the Polly Flanders dress she had been seeking for her daughter Carol, and it took her pay from one full shift - $9 - for the purchase.
Widowed at 35, Betty and her four children would start a new life in Foxboro following her marriage to the late Al Truax, Assistant Superintendent of the Foxboro Highway Dept who later headed the department.
Her devotion to nursing continued throughout her working life, working for several years in the office of Dr. Robert Hayward before joining the local school system. She spent 10 years as a school nurse at the elementary level and another 10 with junior high students. "Oh, how I loved those students," she said.
Betty looks back fondly on the opportunities afforded her through the Victory Nurse Corps to not only make a direct contribution to the war effort but to fullfill a dream she never thought would be realized, that of becoming a nurse.