The diaries begin with Brown as a nursing student from Riverside, California and end with her working as a nurse in southern California. She took classes and worked in Chicago at the Lying In Hospital from October 1932 to February 1933. During this this time she visits her Aunt Anne in Chicago and stays with relatives and friends on the return car trip to California where she remains. She lives in or near Riverside and writes of driving to Whittier, Long Beach, Pasadena, and car vacation trips. . She writes of her car, a Ford and later buying a Chevy and the repairs and maintenance of both. She writes of pottery classes, exercise classes, and lots of sewing and cooking. The entries are about nursing work, family, social life, and boyfriends. She mostly works as a maternity nurse; her work schedule varies and includes split shifts and being on call. She has an active social life with family and friends.; she writes a great deal about her friend Betty. The 1929 diary records her breakup with Harold. She writes of the March 10, 1933 earthquake in Long Beach and the October 2, 1933 earthquake in Vernon. In the later diaries she has a steady boyfriend, Chet, and is still working as a nurse and living in Arlington, Calif. In 1935 she gets promoted to admitting nurse. Chet struggles to find steady work.
