She has a loving, supportive family. At age eighteen, she travels by train from her small-town home to study nursing in a big-city hospital. She almost immediately becomes the leader of an inseparable trio of friends. She works as a Visiting Nurse in New York City and then as a rural public health nurse.

No, she's not Cherry Ames; she's Sue Barton, the engaging heroine of Helen Dore Boylston's seven-book series.

Helen Dore Boylston: Nurse from New Hampshire Sue Barton's creator was a nurse herself, and served in World War I. Click here to read more!

But unlike Cherry Ames, Sue Barton does not solve mysteries while she soothes fevered brows. Red-haired and lively, Sue is a doctor's daughter who hails from a small town in New Hampshire. A highly dedicated, self-sacrificing nurse, Sue meets the intern of her dreams, Bill Barry, in the first book of the series, soon after she begins her training at a large urban hospital, where she pals with classmates Kit and Connie.

Sue temporarily opts for career over marriage, but she eventually marries her doctor, becomes the mother of four young children, and nurses on a part-time basis while her husband toils at the local hospital.

Student Nurse, 1936
Sue enters nursing school, meets classmates Kit and Connie and intern Dr. Bill Barry, engages in assorted hospital highjinks, and overcomes apprehensions about her personal courage.

Senior Nurse, 1937
Sue's last year of training includes surgery and maternity cases, a stint as student head nurse, and romantic complications when Dr. Barry asks her to marry him.

Visiting Nurse, 1938
As a Visiting Nurse in New York City, Sue moves into a supposedly haunted house with Kit, meets "ghost" Marianna and a variety of needy patients, attends Connie's wedding, and breaks her engagement to Bill.

Rural Nurse, 1939
After a family tragedy postpones Sue and Bill's wedding, Sue works as an independent public health nurse in New Hampshire, helping Bill find the source of a typhoid outbreak, reuniting with Kit and Marianna, and ministering to patients during a hurricane.

Superintendent of Nurses, 1940
Sue marries Bill and becomes head of a small new nursing school; problems with Marianna and the other students, dissatisfaction with her job, and a rift in her marriage complicate Sue's life.

Neighborhood Nurse, 1949
Now the mother of three, Sue questions her decision to relinquish nursing for stay-at-home motherhood, but a summer of family-oriented crises and the imminent arrival of a new baby convince her that motherhood is more important than nursing.

Staff Nurse, 1952
When Bill is sent to a TB sanitarium, Sue returns to full-time work at the local hospital and copes capably with patients, student nurses, and family problems.

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