When Mary Bland’s great friend Joey de Beer – later Jo Onderstall, author and talented botanist in Nelspruit’s Lowveld Botanic Gardens – heard Mom had decided to go nursing after matric back in 1945, she said in her forthright way: “What a waste of a good brain!” She was so right! Mom could have done anything.
Typical Mom, she was doing it to help her Mom Annie, widowed two years before. Not only would Annie not have to pay tuition and boarding, Mom would actually be earning a salary.
Jo Onderstall
Jo Ondertsall’s book
Here’s Jo’s 2002 Christmas card to Mary:
