She knew she was different. Only one of the other nurses was an Indian, a girl she’d never met because she worked elsewhere in the 1000-bed hospital.
No one had ever asked her about her background, so she didn’t know if the others in the 76th General Hospital considered her anything other than white. She was accepted, she was sure, for her ability as a surgical nurse.
But they must have talked about it because one of the girls had asked her if she was a real princess. She’d heard that back home she was the great-granddaughter of a chief. “Didn’t that make you a princess?” that girl had asked.
One night in the shock ward, another nurse came to her because she had a patient she wanted Marcella to see. She asked her to see him because he was Native American. Maybe she could be of help, special help.
She went to see this fallen soldier, a double amputee, both legs removed above the knees.
In the 76th General Hospital, there was no end to the work, no end to the new patients, wounded or frozen. This one—his name was Eugene—simply wasn’t progressing. some nurses were concerned because it seemed he was deeply depressed, so much so that they worried about him taking his own life. They were so afraid, in fact, that they said they wouldn’t let him shave--wouldn’t let him alone with a razor blade.
As requested, she went to visit him. Eugene was quiet, but then Marcella didn’t have to be told that Native Americans respect quiet.
The next day, once again, he told her very little, but she knew he wanted her there. “I am from Rosebud,” he told her finally. Marcella was from Cheyenne River.
She offered to write letters home for him, but he didn’t want that. They talked a little bit about the war. He told her that when he and his company were in England, they’d go out every day and make a dry run at what they were about to do. Every day until it happened, the invasion.
Marcella didn’t have the heart to ask him how he’d lost both legs, didn’t want him to go over in his memory what had happened. It didn’t seem right for her to ask him about something he wasn’t willing to give up.
As often as she could, Marcella would visit him, and then one day, just like all the others, Eugene was gone, shipped back to the States. His bed was empty.
For years after she returned home, Marcella attended nursing conferences and seminars, where she would meet, occasionally, someone from the Rosebud. “Eugene Franzen?” she’d ask, “a double amputee?”
One day she got a call from a woman she didn’t know. “You’ve heard of Eugene Franzen?” the unfamiliar voice asked.
Marcella immediately choked up, just hearing the question.
Eugene Franzen was her father. She passed along his phone number.
Marcella waited a day or so before she called. “Do you remember the nurse who was there at your bedside when you were in the hospital in Belgium?” she asked the voice on the other end.
“I will never forget her,” he said.
