At long last! First find in the 1940 census!

I am finally no longer singing the blues. I have found my grandmother and aunt (though there is a story behind that; for now, we will leave it as is) in Pensacola, Florida. My grandmother, widowed, was living in a rented house. My aunt's occupation was listed as "graduate nurse." This signifies that she had finished her nurse's training. I'm not sure it was exactly this way in 1940, but when I was a nurse, we were called "graduate nurse" until we successfully completed the state board exams, then we received our certification as Registered Nurse. Later in the 1940s, Elizabeth would attend Columbia University and receive a B.S. in public health nursing. She was unmarried, and in fact, never married.

The monthly rent on the house was $65. My grandmother, Mary LeSourd Reed, was 50 years old and was the informant for this census, and my aunt, Elizabeth Reed, was 30. Mary Reed is shown as having completed the 11th grade, and she did tell me that she quit high school in her senior year to marry Perry W. Reed, her late husband. Elizabeth Reed is shown as having finished her third year of college. Mary was born in Indiana, and Elizabeth in Illinois. These birthplaces are corroborated in other records I have.

On 1 April 1935 they were living in the same place. Mary did not work; Elizabeth had a job, working for the "health board." It does not say whether that was the county health board or the State Board of Health. I know that at different times, she worked for each one, as she has told me tales of her time at the county health board, and in my living memory, she was employed at the State Board of Health (now the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services). I believe that in 1940 she was working for the local or county (Escambia County, Florida) health board, because the State Board of Health was (and the DHR is) headquartered in Jacksonville.

Elizabeth Reed had worked the entirety of 1939, making $1800. That is probably her yearly salary. She had no other source of income.

So there it is: my "first fruits" of the 1940 census.
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