Our First Fortune

In March 1942, James graduated and received his M. D.

Beginning with James' class, the med. school had gone on a twelve-month schedule with no summers off. They were hurrying up their program to send more doctors to the War. A second class graduated in July, 1942 that year, I think.

The internship program remained on the twelve month program, though, so we had three months to wait for the internship to begin on July 1, 1942. James worked for another hospital in San Angelo for those three months and we closed our apartment in Galveston for that time.

In San Angelo we rented a room and had our meals furnished at the hospital. James was paid $300 a month for those three months and that was a fortune. We had no car, and we were able to save a goodly amount of that salary to help tide us over the next year when he would make only $25 a month as an intern at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston.

The internship and the three-year residency program was a full twelve month one, lasting from July l 1942 to July l, 1946.