Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-18

mn clear sky, to the fiat of her back.
w And there she was to remain,
literally, for period of Is
stricken years. encased, as mummy might
be encaSed in plaster cast that held her body
rigid.
As the star woman reporter on the biggest
metropolitan daily Edna Oliver, rushing down
the corridor of an Office building on scoot
for big story" had stepped into an elevator
shaft, thinking the cage awaited her.
The result had been devastating and had
resulted in q partial paralysis
The Edna Oliver of Is years after this
calamity was scarcely to be recognized as the
alert, vivacious and talented young woman who
had skyrocketed to position Of importance on
the reportorial staff Of q gigantic newspaper.
Pain mental anguish and unutterable fatigue
of spirit had told their story in the face of
Edna Oliver, and yet, as is so often the case
with the affcted in body, she had come through
the trial-by-fre with special and rather mag
niicent kind Of triumph.
WTTH the Is years spent on the fiat of her
Nv back strange VISIONS had come to Edna
Oliver. Those brilliant, comprehending eyes of
hers had looked inward so to speak. Out of the
solitude. out of the pain, out of the long nights,
out of the contacts in the sun parlor with other
souls as stricken as hers, had come a new,
tolerant, spiritual Edna.
The friends who had stood by her in all these
years, who had visited her religiously, cared for
her creature needs noted with certain kind OF
awe this change.
Toward the end of the fifteen years. the
spirit of rebellion in Edna had died down. There
apparently had come to her, in the watches OF
those long nights, some Of the secrets OF the
Sainted.
To visit with Edna Oliver was to leave her
ss2esiSide feeling chastened, humbled and little
reverend To sit in her presence was not only to
leave it grateful for the benediction Of your
own health, but grateful for the benediction
of soul like Edna divers upon this earth
Lying on her back, gazing out of window
ct \ rectangle of sky, had sweetened this woman
with what seemed almost knowledge of the
infinite A spray of lilac in vase could be her
universe. Some one had given her radio, and
the voice of the world outside filled up her little
hospital room and kept her in warm sympathetic
touch with the great milling scenes OF the
metropolis with which she was so physically
out of contact.
nURNG her years in that hospital, Edna
had formed friendship with the afflicted
ones around her, as well as with the physicians
and nurses who served her. She had come
TO learn the strange thwarted psychology of
time the incredible mental and spiritual tri-
umphs that they could accomplish over physical
defeat
It was little ironical as her submission to
her destiny ripened and grew into the something
that was spiritual, that the poor twisted spine of
Edna Oliver should begin to gather strength.
There came a day when her physician could
hold out to the stricken girl promise of a
partial If not complete, recovery.
Curious but the old Edna, at the prospect
Of that. leaped into harness like fire horse at
the call of bell. Old ambitions came flowing
back As she told her favorite physician, Dr.
Alonysious. who had served her we'll, crying
upon the back Of his hand, something that
she had thought dead within herself had lifted
its head.
In the months that followed 1t is more than
probable that sheer grit, determination and re-
hablitated hopes in Edna Oliver accomplished
at least two-thirds toward her miraculous re-
c0very.
&IXTEEN years to the day from the horrible
one when she had hurtled down an elevator
shaft Edna Oliver walked out Of the hospital
Her return to the newspaper was an occa-