One day, while Cynthia was eating in the hospital cafeteria, a man, who looked to be around thirty, walked up to her.
"Mind if I sit with you?" the man asked. He had brown hair with some early grey, blue eyes, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, which Cynthia found odd since facial hair was not in fashion for men at the time.
"Sure," she replied.
He extended his hand, "Hi. My name is Roger Parsons."
She shook his hand, "Cynthia Glass."
"Cynthia's a nice name," he said awkwardly.
"Thanks," she answered suspiciously.
"I can see by your lab coat and name tag that you are a resident-in-training. How far into your residency are you?"
"Just under a year. What do you do here?" she asked.
He took a bite of his food and chewed for a bit. He swallowed and said, "I work for the legal department."
"So you're a lawyer?" Cynthia took a bite of her sandwich.
"Yes." He paused. "Well, I do a lot of paperwork. What I'd really like to do is start my own legal practice working on a variety of types of cases. What kind of doctor are you going to be?"
She was impressed he asked her about what she wanted to do instead of when she planned to get married or how many children she wanted. "I'm going to be an internal medicine specialist. I'll probably work for a hospital for a while and then I'd like to start my own practice too."
"That sounds great. I don't meet many ambitious women… . Impressive," Roger replied.
Did he really just say that? Was he serious? "So, that's a good thing?" Cynthia replied incredulously.
"Absolutely, it's much more interesting to talk to a woman who has interests outside of marriage, family, and fashion," he reassured. "Actually, come to think of it, you're the first professional woman I've run into in this hospital in the almost two years I've worked here. It must be quite a challenge for you."
Cynthia was starting to have a hard time hiding her facial expression which was all agape. "Yes, it can be. It was more challenging when I first started out, but I feel pretty respected among my colleagues now."
"That's good," Roger said and he took a few more bites of his lunch.
Cynthia also ate if only to hide what felt like surprise plastered on her face. Was this guy feeding her lines? "Well, I have to get back to rounds," she said.
"Okay. It was nice talking to you," he said as he shook her hand again. "Maybe I'll see you in the cafeteria again sometime. I work on the fifth floor if you're ever in need of some legal assistance or advice."
"Thanks," she said, still stunned as she got up, and accidentally backed into another resident while looking at Roger.
"I'm sorry," she said to the resident.
The resident replied, "C'mon Glass, pay attention."
She shot him a look, but didn't reply, and then awkwardly laughed in Roger's direction, and she turned and walked away with her tray.
Roger Parsons was born in Dallas, Texas in 1916 to Peter and Joanne Parsons and was your standard W.A.S.P. In terms of the brand of Protestant, he was a United Methodist. His father was a pharmacist and his mother was a housewife. He was the youngest of three children after his middle sister Susan and his elder brother Peter Jr. He had attended Southern Methodist University for his undergraduate work as well as law school, but had moved out to Houston for more job prospects in 1944. He was able to secure a job at Hermann Hospital in 1945 shortly before the early expansion of the Texas Medical Center in 1946.
Roger was the athletic type with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, standing at just over 6 feet tall. He had a strong jaw on a handsome face with a big, winning and infectious smile. He was a man ahead of his time in his beliefs about women's equality. He had always felt that his mother was unhappy in her societally prescribed role, and that she might have found fulfillment beyond house, husband, and children. She had told him once that she entertained the desire to be an architect at one point in her youth, but the field was not open to women. This saddened him because she seemed unhappy a lot of the time and he thought the limitations placed on her sex were the reason. He hoped that he would meet an ambitious woman, and the times and culture would be amenable to her ambitions and dreams so that the woman he married would be happier than his mother.
"I just had lunch with the most amazing woman I've ever met," Roger enthused upon arriving back at the office on the fifth floor.
"Oh?" his co-worker Dean replied.
"Yes. She's going to be a doctor. An internal medicine specialist. So she's very smart," Roger gushed.
Dean replied, "Yeah, but is she a looker? Smart girls usually aren't that pretty."
Roger shot him a look of consternation, "That's terrible and terribly inaccurate. And yes, she's incredibly beautiful."
"What does she look like?" Dean leaned forward, more interested now.
"Medium length, almost black, wavy hair, with deep brown eyes," Roger said.
"And her body?" Dean cut to the chase.
"What's wrong with you?" Roger asked.
"What? Nothing. I'm a man. Aren't you, Parsons?" Dean ribbed.
"She has a nice body, I assume. She was dressed very conservatively in her lab coat, so I didn't get a good look." He paused, and said, "Why am I even talking to you?" With that, he walked back to his desk and began working.
Roger had an undisputed good character among his friends, colleagues, co-workers, and supervisors. He was a non-drinker as he came from a family very active in the temperance movement. He was compassionate, giving, and very loving and nurturing. He sent money back to his parents for his college education even though they didn't expect him to. He was highly ethical and compulsively honest, but avoided being hurtful. He also had a highly intelligent and analytical mind and liked to figure things out. He had some manual skills as well and was an amateur builder and shade tree mechanic. He was egalitarian and admired women quite a bit. Even so, if a woman was being harassed in his presence, he would step in and protect her if he had to.