U: Underwood to Upham

Underwood, Nanine
Tall and willowy, with a coronet of braided golden hair and blue eyes, Nanine Underwood is both beautiful and rich. She looks like Rapunzel, but acts like an ogre. She comes to the Wayside Rest Home because she doesn't know how to take care of her new baby, and she won't talk about the baby's missing father. Cherry turns her into a doting mother and helps her reconcile with her husband (Rest Home Nurse).

Upham, Dr. Marius Lexington
Lex Upham is a brilliant and headstrong intern, with "a striking face, beak-nosed and jaggedly hewn, full of character and humor"; he has golden-brown eyes, straight sandy-colored hair, a square jaw, and "decided black brows" (Senior Nurse, p. 14). Cherry meets him on the first day of her senior year. Their relationship is rocky--he is suspected of being a thief--but after Cherry traps the real thieves, he asks her to marry him; she declines. He also joins the army and is part of the Spencer unit in Panama, where he gives Cherry an engagement ring for her birthday--though she can't respond to his proposal, because the army unexpectedly sends her to the Pacific. A year later, while Cherry is stationed in England as a flight nurse, she gets a "Dear Cherry" letter: Lex is about to marry another woman. Her pride is hurt, but she realizes that Lex was not right for her. Lex suddenly reappears in the series in Country Doctor's Nurse and arranges a job for Cherry; one of Cherry's friends notes that "even though Lex thought he was in love with somebody else when you were a flight nurse, you'll notice he's still a bachelor" (p. 11).

Lex makes another surprise appearance in "Rocky Mountain Adventure," as maddeningly high-handed as ever. He's doing research on tuberculosis on a fellowship at a Denver hospital; when Cherry, on her way to a Colorado resort, stops by to visit, he overrides her plans and arranges a private duty case for her.

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