Book 18, by Helen Wells
Illustrated by Frank Vaughn
Grosset & Dunlap, 1956
Nursing here ... did not call on the more difficult nursing skills, like surgery or obstetrics, but it did place her on her own and in full charge.
--From Cherry Ames, Department Store Nurse, p. 13
Cherry's medical office at a New York department store adjoins the antiques department--where a series of mysterious thefts have cast suspicion on a young widow.
Chapter 1: Home for Thanksgiving
Chapter 2: New Friends, Old Friends
Although here Gwen's Aunt Kathy and Uncle John Martin live on Long Island, in Visiting Nurse she didn't seem to know anyone in New York except the family of an old schoolmate. Gwen has even more New York relatives in The Mystery in the Doctor's Office--but the Martins aren't mentioned among them.
Chapter 3: The Jade Vase
Chapter 4: An Invitation
Coincidentally, the heroine of a juvenile nurse series that began publication three years later, in 1959, bears the same name as Gwen's aunt: Kathy Martin.
Chapter 5: Mr. Otto and the Music Box
Chapter 6: A Most Ingenious Trick
Chapter 7: Strange Markings
Helen Wells used a New York City department store setting for an earlier book, A Flair for People (1955), one of her Career Romances for Young Moderns. Her heroine, a personnel counselor, meets a suspected store thief at the Mary White Restaurant. A year later, in Department Store Nurse, Cherry meets suspected store thief Anna Julian at the same Mary White Restaurant.
Chapter 8: Errand or Excuse?
Chapter 9: Private Gallery
Chapter 10: Where the Melody Led
Although this book is set at Christmastime, with a great deal of action occurring on Christmas Eve, no mention is made of Christmas Eve being Cherry's birthday.
Cherry Ames, Department Store Nurse
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