St Matthews High School - Samascript Yearbook (Conshohocken, PA)

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nursing to get some college work. The student who has college work will be called first. In the future I think nursing will require a college degree.” When Miss O’Halloran leaves her office in the State Capitol Building at Harrisburg she returns to the charming home in Overbrook which she shares with her dead brother's three children to whom she has been father and mother for years. Her gracious manner and sense of humor have contributed in no small way to her success in this role. Her house is a real home with an air of informality and hospitality about it, and is alive with the laughter and activities of the young. She is a splendid housekeeper and bakes very good cakes. Though she loves gardening, her hobby is art needlework. The state nurses’ becoming blue silk uniform which she designed is a tribute to her good taste and interest in all details relating to her work. On the mantel piece, in her comfortable living room, is a picture or herself in her robes of doctor of law. She has the distinction of being the only woman on whom La Salle College has conferred this degree. Alice O'Halloran is a woman without “the small jealousies of command”; one who would never ask of a subordinate what she herself would not do. She has the discovering eye, the ready hand, the inspirational force of the born leader. Her life has been “rich with human significance.” To broken, diseased bodies she has seen health restored through her untiring efforts. For herself she asks nothing but the opportunity for service. Her accurate mind, strong will, and generous heart make her the sort of person to whom the suffering and the poor can turn in their hour of need. Her gift for organization and administration, her unselfish devotion to duty, and her comprehensive humanitarian interests place her in the foremost rank of the great army of her profession. Margaret Mary Kelly '42 Margaret Anne Kehoe '42 1 he Perfect Crime THE farm house kitchen was in darkness, when Bob Morris entered. He hesitated a moment to get his bearings. The old stove was in the corner to his right; the table, in the center of the room, directly before him. The other objects were hidden in the shadows, but he tried to remember the position of each of them as he had last seen it. As he stood behind the door he recalled his father’s warning about bad beginnings, but tonight Bob was desperate. He had spent hours plotting, until he was sure that his plans were perfect. Mother would be sewing in the living room. Dad would go upstairs in search of the evening paper which Bob had purposely left in his father's room earlier in the evening. The boy waited in silence; minutes seemed like hours. He began to feel nervous, but it was too late to retreat now. He prayed that nothing would go wrong. One slip and all his scheming would be useless. The clock was ticking the seconds away with an unusually loud and rhythmic count as if trying to warn Mr. and Mrs. Morris of what their son was about to do. Suddenly footsteps came in Bob’s direction. Was Dad coming to the kitchen? The lad hardly breathed. His knees, knocking together, kept time with the clock on the wall. The footsteps turned towards the stairs. Yes, Dad was going for his paper. It was time for Bob to put his strategy to the test. Slowly he crossed the room until he reached the stove; carefully he ran his hand along the shelf. Without warning a box of matches tumbled to the floor. The young thief froze with fright. Then his mother called quietly, “Bob, the cookies are in the cabinet, not on the stove.” But Bob had lost his appetite. John E. Crawford, '43 THE MIRROR Eight

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Interview With Miss Alice M. O Hall oran “D ESPONSIBILITY is the definition of life. Miss Alice O’Halloran, Director of J-V Public Health Nurses in Pennsylvania, learned the truth of that saying years ago. She has been the living exemplification of Father Faber’s interpretation of life, and her days have been crowded with responsibilities “that have walked hand in hand with capacity and power.” In 1906, the Pennsylvania State Department of Health began to organize its efforts to control tuberculosis. At this period typhoid, pneumonia, and other diseases, prevalent in epidemic form in nearly every county of the state, made it imperative that there should be an organization that could be called upon in case of emergency. Mr. Samuel Dickson, health commissioner, authorized Miss O’Halloran, who had graduated from Philadelphia General Hospital only three years before, to establish a special branch of the Bureau of Public Health. To prepare herself for this project, she took courses at Columbia and Chicago Universities, and then organized the nursing service in conjunction with the tuberculosis work. The society began with one nurse, Miss O'Halloran. In 1918 it was made a bureau. Today it has 211 members. The state is divided into seven districts with a supervised nurse over each district, all directly responsible to Miss O’Halloran. These units conduct a tuberculosis service where persons are interviewed, diagnoses made, and treatment recommended; they care for mothers during pre-natal and post-natal periods, follow up every birth that is registered, keep in touch with children between the ages of two and six, “the forgotten period and supervise medical examination of school children. Slender, gray-eyed, Alice O'Halloran is the guiding genius, the directive force of this organization. Alice O'Halloran was born in Philadelphia, the eldest of eight children. Her dream of becoming a school teacher was never realized, for she was early called upon to share the financial responsibilities at home. Miss Gilloola, a trained nurse, advised her to be a nurse, but it was not until her twelve-year-old sister, Elizabeth, died of diphtheria that Alice decided to study nursing. Her father strongly opposed the idea; he thought that “to be a nurse was by no means elevating.” Alice took her problem to Father Thomas McCarty, then a curate at St. Elizabeth's Church, and only through the persevering efforts of the priest were her father's objections overcome. At Father McCarty’s suggestion, she entered the Philadelphia General Hospital, and on October 10, 1900, began the work to which she has devoted her life. During her stay at the hospital she was supervisor of the surgical ward and the men's nervous ward. In 1904, the directress of nurses asked her to accompany Mrs. Pat Campbell, the celebrated actress, to London. “I felt like a very insignificant person when my two-by-four suitcase was placed beside Mrs. Campbell’s twenty-seven trunks, said Miss O’Halloran. “This was the first time I had ever been more than thirty miles from home,” she continued, “and I was very lonesome. After leaving her charge safely in London, Alice met her uncle in Liverpool, who took her to his home in Queenstown. “My aunt,” said Miss O’Halloran, “immediately tried to arrange 'a match’ for me, for she thought it ‘high time' for me to be married. I firmly resisted all her efforts to marry me off, for I had other plans for my future. “Before leaving America, I had promised to take a certain maternity case. Frantic telegrams from my prospective patient prompted me to return. I would probably still be in Ireland, but for that,” she laughed. Since that first venture in traveling, Miss O’Halloran has traversed the United States from coast to coast, lecturing in colleges, high schools, and clubs. At present, she is giving talks on civilian defense, and on the urgent need for nurses. “Never was there a greater need for public health nurses than there is today, declared Miss O’Halloran. “I would advise every high school girl who is interested in THE MIRROR Seven

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Candlelight OF ALL light, candlelight is the most charming to me. The lambent flame sways back and forth forming flickering shadows in the enshrouding darkness. Peace, tranquillity, and contentment are woven into the shimmering web that surrounds it. Dreams hover on the edge of the mellow glow and carry us back along the paths of memory to the dust-covered doors of yesterday and forward to the silver portals of tomorrow. The soft radiance of the candle adds beauty and romance to pictures of fact and fancy. Candlelight has been the setting for unforgettable scenes in literature. Portia, in “The Merchant of Venice” sees the welcoming light burning in her hall. “How far that little candle throws its beams; “So shines a good deed in a naughty world. she exclaims. Always I visualize the stray beams glistening on her golden hair and lighting up her lovely face. How different is the scene in “Macbeth.” The castle is ghostly as a tomb, when, in the dead of night, Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep, carrying a lighted candle that she kept ever at her bedside. The flickering flame playing upon her pale countenance betrays the agony of remorse that torments her seared soul. The romance and mystery in the Master of Ballantrae are enhanced by the weird candlelighted duel fought by the brothers James and Henry Durrisdeer. In the eerie light they faced each other on the snow-covered ground. All the earth was black save where “the flames went up as steady as in a chamber in the midst of the frosted trees.” In that strange encounter the Master” fell wounded and Henry and Mackellar return to the house “leaving the candles on the frosty ground and the body lying in their light under the trees.” In life, no less than in fiction, candlelight lends mystery and beauty to many a scene. In the silence of the sanctuary, the lovely waxen tapers, emblems of sacrificial love, consume themselves amid the frag- THE MIRROR ranee of fragile flowers and wafted incense. How often in the faint flow of a candle is vigil kept by a sick-bed! How often the candle lights the way for souls to the great beyond! Around the still forms of the departed, these silent sentinels stand, and their amber rays fall lovingly and tenderly in parting benediction on the quiet features of the dead. Candles somehow soften grief for— “What seem to us but sad funeral tapers. May be heaven's distant lamps.” Mystery and romance blend with portraits of life and literature as the curling tongues of flame dance in the bordering darkness. I love to spend my leisure moments recapturing the charm and witchery of childhood's happy hours, recalling tender memories of yesterday, and dreaming of golden days of tomorrow, in the magic glow of candlelight. Margaret Anne Kehoe '42 Nine