There used to be dozens of romance-themed comic books between the fifties and sixties. And there's nothing too deep about any of them. Most titles featured 2-4 short stories featuring a young woman who falls in love, frequently in the midst of some challenge. Now a few of these romance titles have themes, as as all western stories, or all nurses, or all black women. Same concept, but each story rotates around the common theme.
Which brings us to CAREER GIRL ROMANCES...
CAREER GIRL ROMANCES was published from mid 1964 through late 1973. All of the women in these romance stories have exciting careers -- such as models, or nurses, or air stewardesses, or secretaries. And then they fall in love in the midst of some career-themed challenge.
I ended up discovering a social work themed career girl romance last night in CAREER GIRL ROMANCES #28. Keep in mind that I really don't encounter that many social workers in comic books. Honestly, I think it was one of the only "social worker removes child from struggling parent" stories that I've ever read also! So I was pretty excited!
This particular story is titled "Keep Your Heart Free." It features writing by Joe Gill and pencils & inks by Sal Gentile. It features a young social worker named Barbara Moore. She was called out to the home of David Clark and his young daughter Ginny following reports that they were living in a filthy home and that young Ginny was severely malnourished.
Things are bad enough that Barbara plans to remove young Ginny, presumably to place her in foster care. Dave begs for some time and understanding. Three more days is all he needs. Then he can feed his child and clean their home. Unsure of how to respond, Barbara decides to send the cop home and instead gives Dave $10 so that he can take Ginny out to a restaurant for some food -- as opposed to the grocery store where the food would likely be more affordable. But maybe things were different back in the sixties...
Once they were gone, Barbara changed out of her office clothing and began scrubbing! She recruited a boy from another one of the families that she worked with and told him to wash the Clarks' mountain of dirty clothes and linen. She then began scrubbing and mopping the Clarks' home until they got home -- all the while criticizing David Clark for quitting his full-time professional job to work on the Great American Novel.
Once Dave and Ginny return home, Barbara began lecturing him for neglecting his daughter. Of course, he got defensive and informed her that he almost died, which is why he stopped feeding his daughter or cleaning their home. But now he has the opportunity to meet with a publisher in three days, as he's hopeful that he'll not only sell his book but will come home from the meeting with a big, fat publishing advance!
Properly chastened, Barbara asks to read Dave's unpublished manuscript -- and she loves it! Overnight, Barbara decides to take a few vacation leave days and inserts herself into the Clarks' life. She tells Dave that she will cook and clean and care for little Ginny while he types away. She tells him to focus on the "fat check" that he will certainly earn and she'll take care of the rest!
Say what you will about Barbara, she knows how to pick them! Dave comes home waving a big advance check and instantly proposes to her. It doesn't matter that less than a week earlier he'd been struggling to feed his daughter or to keep them from falling into a life of squalor. Or that he'd quit his secure job without any form of safety net. He'd just gotten paid and that was good enough for now! Of course, she said yes to his proposal!
In case you're wondering, it's completely unethical for a social worker to do pretty much everything that Barbara did in this story. Heck, it's illegal in most areas for her to become romantically/sexually involved with Dave, much less married to him. "Once a client, always a client" is the standard refrain. She could very easily lose her license and her career for her foolishness.
Then again, people were a bit more forgiving with such situations in 1965 than they are now.