C: Carroll to Crane

Carroll, Gregory
Gregory Carroll has a grave, spiritual look, and extraordinary cold blue eyes. About forty-five years old, he is a fortuneteller, to whom foolish Kitty Owens, the sister of Cherry's patient, Scott Owens, runs for advice. Carroll predicts trouble--and his prediction comes true when he tries to blackmail Scott (Private Duty Nurse).

Cartright, Ricky
Twelve-year-old Ricky Cartright is ensconced at the Wayside Rest Home with a broken leg in a "cement sock" while his parents are away in South America. He tags along after Bob Porterfield, putting a crimp in Bob's budding romance with Felicia Martin; and pesters everyone in sight when his treasured spaceman goggles are stolen (Rest Home Nurse).

Champion, Reed
Reed Champion, tall and athletic, teaches physical education and coaches basketball and baseball at a Long Island high school. In the summer, he is the head counselor at Thunder Cliff camp for boys, adjacent to Camp Blue Water for girls, where Cherry works. At Cherry's behest, Reed keeps watch over a suspect's home, but not too well--the suspect manages to get away. Instead of helping Cherry finally corner the criminal, he takes the campers to a circus (Camp Nurse).

Charlton, Marcia
Cold and regal, with a slight limp and a stern and forbidding expression, Marcia Charlton runs The Manor, the prim and proper boardinghouse on Main Street, in Sleepyside; Cherry lives there while working as the office nurse for a country doctor. One night, Miss Marcia furiously accuses Cherry of stealing a salmon-pink rebozo. Once an aspiring ballet dancer, Miss Marcia was badly injured in an auto accident twenty-five years earlier and broke her engagement to a young doctor, who is now Cherry's boss (Country Doctor's Nurse).

Clayton, Dr. James
The first person Cherry meets when she arrives at Spencer as a student nurse is Jim Clayton, a "tall, pleasant young man ... even-featured, brown-haired and brown-eyed" (Student Nurse, p. 19). An intern, he gets Cherry out of a scrape when she borrows the classroom demonstration doll, and later helps her save the life of a mysterious secret patient. For a while, Cherry fancies herself in love with him, but when he becomes engaged to another nurse, Marjory Baker, she feels the two of them are right together.

Clyde, Daniel
Dan Clyde, an army lieutenant, went to high school in Indian City, with Cherry's old friend Ann Evans. He conducts a clandestine war of nerves with Cherry's patient, whom he claims is his uncle, but Cherry finally insists that he tell her exactly what's going on (Rest Home Nurse).

Cole, Henry
Cherry literally bumps into elderly Henry Cole in a New York City bookstore, splashing coffee over both of them, then meets him again as one of her patients while she works temporarily as a Visiting Nurse. Cherry realizes he is troubled by more than just his bout with influenza, and learns the touching story of his failed romance ("Christmas in New York").

Cooper, Wade
Air force captain Wade Cooper is Cherry's pilot when she becomes a flight nurse. A "tall, laughing, sunburned young flier" (Flight Nurse, p. 6), Wade is a daredevil who has been assigned to fly an ambulance plane to ensure that he will stop taking crazy chances. When he transfers back to combat flying, he names his bomber plane after her. After the war, he visits Cherry in Hilton and asks her to marry him. Cherry doesn't think he's ready to settle down, and sets out to prove it; she puts him to "the most horrible test she could think of. She took him shopping" (Veterans' Nurse, p. 151). He weathers that ordeal, but storms off after the canoe they're in overturns and Cherry rescues him from drowning: "I'm going to marry a soft, helpless, feminine little girl who'd let me drown!" (Veterans' Nurse, p. 162). Wade works in an automotive business in Tucson, Arizona, and later becomes a commercial pilot. He visits Cherry in New York in Visiting Nurse and Country Doctor's Nurse. Later he is overseas on a job (At Hilton Hospital). His favorite vegetable, he says, is "spaghetti" (Veterans' Nurse, p. 152).

Cornish, Mary
Cherry makes her first calls as a Visiting Nurse under the guidance of Mary Cornish, a shy, slight, unassuming young nurse, who is well-loved on her district. But she is so quiet that Cherry almost feels that Mary Cornish should be under her wing (Visiting Nurse).

Cowan, Captain Johnny Mae
Cherry's chief nurse while she's stationed in Panama, Captain Johnny Mae Cowan is "a lithe and lively woman of about forty, very professional, with reddish brown hair and snapping brown eyes" (Army Nurse).

Craig, Miss
The head nurse on Men's Surgical, Cherry's second ward duty at Spencer, is "an old-school disciplinarian, more of a machine than a human being ... a short, stout, elderly woman with a rigid posture, a voice and temper that crackled like her apron, and a withered smile that seemed almost mechanical" (Student Nurse, p. 107). Cherry is not happy on Men's Surgical, but later realizes that Miss Craig is not an ogre.

Crane, Timmy
While working on the cruise ship Julita, Cherry nurses Timmy Crane, a six-year-old with dark curly hair, through a bout with croup. But little Timmy's real problem isn't croup--it's his helpless, rather frivolous, irresponsible mother. When Timmy loses his beloved stuffed panda, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Cherry takes an illicit but refreshing dip in the ship's pool to retrieve it, and later uses Fuzzy-Wuzzy to hide a precious bottle of ambergris that Jan Paulding and Henry Landgraf are both seeking (Cruise Nurse).

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