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didn’t work, at least not for Sam. He thought perhaps his working schedule was objectionable and offered to change jobs. Amelia was not flattered; she was irritated. “I don’t want to tell Sam what he should do,” she told Muriel. “He ought to know what makes him happiest, and then do it, no matter what other people say. I know what I want to do and I expect to do it, married or single!” Sam continued to see Amelia but he still disapproved of working wives, while the woman he loved referred to marriage as “living the life of a domestic robot.”
    It was evident from the clippings and notes Amelia kept adding to herscrapbook that she had not given up her hopes for a career:
    A woman has now broken into the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. She is Miss Aleen Cust, sister of Sir Charles Cust, equerry to the King.
    I note women are employed as testers in a French automobile factory—proving equal or superior to men.
    One of the youngest trust busters is Miss Crena Sellers, now on the staff of U.S. Attorney Buckner here. She graduated from Yale Law School last September.
    The supporter of careers for women looked for additional work for herself and found it in October, another part-time job, this one at Denison House, a settlement house in a Boston neighborhood of rundown tenements occupied by immigrants, most of whom were Chinese, Armenian, or Syrian and whosechildren were to be her charges. At first she captivated the children with her beautiful car in which she often gave them rides. But her obvious patience and affection for them soon aroused a deeper admiration. More companion than mother, Amelia played games with them, bandaged their playground wounds, taught them English, and visited their often chaotic and always impoverished homes. When Marianvisited her once atDenison House she noticed Amelia’s “tenderness for children, even the occasionally smelly little children of the settlement.” Amelia assured her, “Chinese are an
adorable
people. You can’t realize it until you really know them.”
    However, the surrogate big sister was also a serious and dedicated social worker. Forty years before Operation Headstart, she decided that “social service should be preventative rather than curative” and defined the ultimate goal of social work with children as giving them “a sound education.” Only with education could they “make adjustments to poverty, illness, illiteracy or any other morbid condition.”
    At Denison House she was certain she had discovered a vocation and a career. The work was a practical expression of her basic beliefs, learned and accepted as a child. It was not enough to talk about social justice and charity. One must act. The children in her care needed help and she had the experience to give it. The former nurse could teach basic hygiene. The former office clerk could type. The scholar could write up reports and the teacher of English to foreign adults could teach it to their children. The Ogontz student had enough social poise to gain the approval of a board of directors. The aviator had already raised funds for the house by flying over Boston one spring day dropping leaflets for a benefit carnival to be held in Waltham. Already a friend and protégée of the director, Marion Perkins, in October Amelia became a fulltime staff member, moved into living quarters at the settlement house, and was elected secretary of the board.
    Although Amelia worked five days a week at Denison House, she spent her weekends pursuing her “hobby” of flying. She had joined the local chapter of the National Aeronautic Association soon after her arrival in Boston. When her old friend and mentor, Bert Kinner, was looking for a sales outlet for his planes, one of the people he met in California was Harold T. Dennison of Quincy, Massachusetts, who was developing a commercial airport on land near the present-day Naval Reserve Air Base at Squantum. At Kinner’s suggestion, Dennison asked Amelia to