By March, I was offered three thousand dollars, and the Sisters of Charity promised to pay my attorneys' fee. My attorneys and myself conferred in this matter, and as I was nearly destitute, I thought it best to take what I could get and have the strain off my mind, and I authorized Mr. Scott and Mr. Kollock to notify the defendant's attorneys that I would accept their offer. So, on March 15, 1913, I received from the Sisters of Charity of Providence, through their representatives, the sum of three thousand dollars for thirty-one years of service to them. My attorneys' fee was fifteen hundred dollars, which was promptly paid. So it cost the Roman Catholic Hierarchy the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars ($4,500.00) for the service I had given them, and to keep the case out of court and the publicity of the same, which would have been a bankruptcy producer for St. Vincent's Hospital.
A great deal has been said by the Roman Catholics about the large sum of money the church paid me after I left the sisterhood. I will agree with my Roman Catholic friends that the amount I received from the community was a magnificent sum, when seen in silver dollar pieces. But, if they will consider the thirty-one years' service I gave them, they will very readily see that I received just about one dollar and eighty-six cents ($1.86) a week, most of the time nursing and managing one of the floors of St. Vincent's Hospital. A nurse in the world ordinarily is paid twenty-five dollars a week; now my good Roman Catholic "knocker," compare that with the "large" sum I received. If the service of a nurse is worth that amount, why is a sister-nurse not worth just as much, if she does the work required or more?
I am not complaining about the pay I received. I feel that I am repaid, not in dollars and cents, but in experience. I am only too thankful to think that I saw the folly of the whole system in time to be free before I would be called upon to face my Maker, and I trust and pray that in His great judgment, He may give me strength and health and wisdom for many years to come that I may be able to tell my story to those in darkness and indifference.
Fac-simile of Check I Received from Attorneys for Sisters of Charity, as Payment for Thirty-one Years' Service Rendered to Them.
CHAPTER XV.
My Recommendation From the Doctors of Portland—The Good Samaritan—I Affiliate With a Protestant Church—My New Work.
When I came to Portland, and before I had settled with the community, I decided that I would try to make my living by nursing, as that was practically all I knew.