Mary Ellis Stebbins had always planned to attend a nursing school in Harlem, where she lives. But instead she becomes one of the first two black students invited to attend Woodycrest, a previously all-white nursing school in upstate New York.

She and her friend Julie would rather go to an all-black school where they "wouldn't have to worry about feeling different and out of place," but they decide they have a "duty to others of our race" to attend Woodycrest.

Though they are welcomed warmly, Mary Ellis and Julie do face some prejudice from classmates, and they are always acutely aware of how their behavior will reflect on other blacks.

A Cap for Mary Ellis, 1953
This is an unusual, absorbing story of the problems Mary Ellis Stebbins, a young black woman, encounters when she begins her nurse's training at a formerly all-white nursing school.

Author Hope Newell worked as a public health nurse; she also served in the Army Nurse Corps.

Mary Ellis, Student Nurse, 1958
As Mary Ellis continues into her second year of training for a nursing career, she finds romance with a handsome young black intern.

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