Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-11-22
BY Beth Campbell.

~ A~SWA Se@AA4tNSA. ...
The chic New York stylist who came
to live at the White House after her
marriage there last July to Harry
Hopkins, President Roosevelt's closest
adviser, really works at her war job as
volunteer nurses aide. And loves 1t.
Blue-eyed Louise Macy Hopkins makes
pretty picture on sunny mornings
bicycling up Pennsylvania avenue bare
headed, with her black coat flying away
from trim blue and white uniform
Her pert cap, which she is not allowed
to wear outdoors, peeks from pocket
Some days she takes the streetcar or
Is driven in her husbands car, but her
destination is the same. She's en- route
from the Executive Mansion to Columbia,
Washingtons biggest mother and baby
hospital, where she gives bed baths, feels
pulses, tubs backs, fills water bottles,
makes beds and answers bells
Captain of Columbia Aides.
Four days week, Tuesday through
Friday, she checks in before 8 am, and
works until $3.50 pm. As captain of the
Columbia aides, she also stays overtime
once month to make out reports and
to check by phone the aides available
for the next month.
Fellow nurses aides praise her. Once
skeptical regular nurses say she's "respon-
sible." Patients say she's sweet" and
swell" And she says she's we'll paid
even working free.
"Why, think it's the most gratifying
work any one could do" Mrs Hopkins
explained when the superintendent of
nurses called her down from third floor
surgical for an interview. She has
steered clear of reporters and tried to
stay in the background since her mar
riage three months ago and Mrs. Roose
velt's announcement that the couple had
"unselflshly agreed to stay with us in
the interest of carrying out the war"
Anything you do that is really helping
some one makes you feel good" the
fashion expert-nurses' helper said. Just
to know that light might have had to
stay on nobody knows how long if you
hadn't been there to answer it. To
know that your presence is comforting
to some one just coming out from under
the ether"
She looked very earnest, sitting there
IN her blue denim jumper apron over
white blouse which was clasped at the
neck with the nurses aide pin, maltese
cross in gold with volunteer written on
blue outer circle. Steady blue eyes be-
meath natural brows looked out from
under te-trimmed, blue starched
cap which she had pinned to her net
covered chestnut hair. On the cap and
on her left sleeve she wore the Joint
Red Cross-OCD insignia.
All the way round, it's very salts
flying" the former Paris editor of Har-
per's Bazaar smiled. "Of course. 1 SIM
ply like it. All my life I've thought I
would like to be nurse, but probably
wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been
for the war;"
Her Chosen Field.
Asked how Mr.. Hopkins felt about her
volunteer work, she replied that he
thinks its wonderful" agrees it's the
most needed thing. OF course she added,
she had already decided upon it as her
war job before their wedding and had
some $50 hours of active service before
she left New York.
This nurses aide job which she chose
Is no snap. Like $4,000 other American
women who now have completed the
courses, Louise Hopkins had to take 30
hours of training-35 hours in a class
room under a registered nurse learning
medical terms and expressions and
practicing on classmates temperatures
and the like, and Is hours additional
supervised practice in hospital wards in
the presence of registered nurses At
graduation they agree to give $50 hours
work year without pay. They buy
their own uniforms and must take the
Red Cross first-aid course-another 20
hour proposition.
1t isn't hard to get in the $50 hours a
year, though, according to Mrs. Hop
klns. She figured minute, half to
herself. -Four days a week. Six hours
day counting out time for lunch.
At 1t for Six Months.
II guess I'll have at least SO hours
this month"; she said. Il often give
Saturday, too, when Mr.. Hopkins is
working. I have well over 300 hours
and I've been doing it six months"
The former fashion writer might have
added that part of that six months was
taken up with a courtship and wedding
which claimed the Nations attention
and which would have kept many women
too busy to do anything outside right
now"
Her marriage to 51-year-old Harry
Hopkins, former WPA administrator
now chairman of the Munitions Assign
ments Board of the United States and
Great Britain, was the 18th wedding to
take place in the White House, the first
since 1914, when Eleanor Wilson married
her fathers Secretary of the Treasury
William Gibbs McAdoo.
They met last January when she
went to see him about job armed with
letter of introduction from her former
magazine editor boss He called her up
the next day and asked her to have