My aunt is now 85 and has had polio since she was 4 months old.  Below I’ve presented some of her memoir.  Refer to my previous post called My Aunts Memoir

The reason I have always been capable definitely has to do with my Mother’s strength and determination. She taught me from the beginning that with very few exceptions I could do anything my siblings could do. I would just have to find my own way.

 

I was the youngest of five with two brothers and two sisters (Bill, August, Nina, Madeline). My Father died when I was two months old and at four months I came down with Polio. When my mother picked me up, my head was lying on my back, my right side was paralyzed, and the left partially so. When she went to change my diaper my legs were totally limp and my feet were straight with my legs. Not bent up at the ankles. When I first came down with polio, the family was quarantined for 10 days.

The decision was made to put me in casts from the waist down. This is the only knowledge they had in 1925. The casts were so heavy and what little muscle I had was not enough for me to move, so for two years my Mother turned me night and day every 20 minutes so that I wouldn’t get bed sores. This must have been so stressful and energy sapping for my mom. Finally, when I was 2 years old they removed my casts and I was able to move around more on my own. Gradually my neck strengthened to an upright position and my arms strengthened. So at two and a half years of age the Dr. decided that I was old enough to use crutches and wear full length braces on my legs. They did not put knee joints in the braces, as they thought I might not remember to lock the joints when I got up to walk. The other Dr. and the nurses said I was much too young, but they were proved wrong. In a matter of ten days after the braces were constructed and the special length crutches were made, I was walking with all four of my new legs.

One day the “visiting nurse” was checking on my progress. When I wanted to go into another room she wanted to open the door for me. My Mother told her, “Eleanor has to learn to do things for herself.” The nurse went back and told the officials at the clinic that Eleanor had a very mean mother. They straightened her thinking right away, as they had witnessed my progress, and my Mother’s determination for two and a half years. This is just to give you some idea of how strong my Mother had to be to encourage me to grow up just like the other kids. Her motto for me was, “You can do anything the other kids can do. You just have to find your own way to accomplish things.”