B: Baker to Burnham

Baker, Marjory
When she begins to study nursing at Spencer, Cherry is initially assigned to Ward 4, Women's Medical, along with Josie Franklin. The head nurse of Ward 4 is young Marjory Baker, a recent nursing graduate with hazel eyes and blond hair. She becomes engaged to handsome young intern Jim Clayton (Student Nurse), and eventually marries him; she continues to work at Spencer while he is a resident at City Hospital (At Spencer).

Barclay, Lloyd
The nephew of one of Cherry's patients, Lloyd Barclay is a mining engineer. He helps Cherry investigate Rogue's Cave and foil a gang of smugglers (Island Nurse).

Barker, Louella (Mom)
A plump cheerful woman of sixty, with two short curly gray braids, Mom had once been a practical nurse. Poor and alone, convalescing from an operation, she becomes Cherry's self-appointed "assistant." After Mom undergoes a second operation, Cherry takes up a collection to buy her a new wardrobe, and the formidable and forbidding surgeon Dr. Wylie surprises Cherry by making a contribution and helping Mom get a job at the hospital (Senior Nurse). She is still employed at Spencer when Cherry returns to work in the new children's wing (At Spencer).

Barton, Dr. Bob
Dr. Bob Barton was once called "the millionaire intern"; although his father is "one of the richest oil-well operators in Texas," he "passed up the idle life of a millionaire playboy for a more satisfying one in medicine" (Jungle Nurse, p. 5). He runs into Cherry unexpectedly in London, and convinces her to go to Kenya with him as his nurse.

Blaine, John
Cherry nurses sixty-two-year-old movie director John Blaine while he's hospitalized in New York for diabetes, then agrees to accompany him to a movie shoot in a Mojave Desert ghost town. He's scared of needles, but learns to tolerate the daily dose of insulin Cherry administers ("Ghost Town Mystery").

Blair, Mrs. Harold
A difficult, demanding woman, Mrs. Blair has severe asthmatic attacks. She is an ugly woman who is habitually in an ugly mood, with gray-streaked, straw-colored hair that she wears in an auburn net. Many of her ills are imagined. She feels that Cherry's sole purpose in coming to the Twin Mounds Guest Ranch is to catch a husband--either Dr. Kirk Monroe, or ranch foreman Torry Torrington, or even the pretentious tutor, Harold Bean (Dude Ranch Nurse).

Brent, Dr. Johnny
Young Dr. Johnny Brent is Josie Franklin's beau--but he enjoys visiting with the entire Spencer Club, and he's "easygoing enough to be amused rather than ruffled by Josie's rattlebrained remarks" (Visiting Nurse, p. 126). He even helps the nurses dress dolls for the settlement house Christmas party.

Burnham, Mildred
When Cherry's senior class at Spencer "adopts" the incoming probationers, Cherry is paired with Mildred Burnham, a dumpy, ordinary girl to whom she takes an instant dislike. They finally become friends when Cherry drags Mildred along for a spring evening away from the hospital; they buy themselves corsages, overindulge in Italian food, eat ice cream, and watch a movie about army nurses. Later, Mildred reports seeing suspicious activity at Dr. Joe's lab, and she and Cherry pretend to be cleaning women to trap the drug thieves--one of whom is an escaped murderer (Senior Nurse).

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