By Frances Stebbins
{Frances Stebbins has been covering events in Western Virginia, especially those relating to faith communities, since 1953.}
It seems that, like a devil, polio has reared its ugly head in some places showing the world once again that vaccinations cannot be neglected even decades after the serious neurological disease apparently had disappeared.
The disappearance was due to the development of a vaccine which came into use after I became an adult — and thus less likely to get the virus-caused disease – but in time for Charlie’s and my children to receive their vaccinations. We lost no time in ensuring that they would be spared the summer fears of catching poliomyelitis, a justified fear for polio often left crippling that lasted for a lifetime.
Polio — called erroneously ‘infantile paralysis” because it could affect adults as it did President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1920s — was much a factor each summer. Swimming pools were not open when several cases were reported in a community. The opening of public schools might be delayed for a time. People avoided communities that were hard hit as was the town of Wytheville in mid-century.
I recall that when a small child, as an uncle drove my mother and me to visit my aunt in Tazewell, we left at 6 a.m. for the long day’s ride and did not stop for lunch at any places on the way for fear of contagion.
Later, when I could read the newspaper that came in the mail from Richmond each weekday, there were reports of the number of new polio cases being reported in the eastern part of the commonwealth. I worried that I would catch it.
And later yet, I saw the toll the disease could take on people handicapped for life with a useless arm – a high school classmate or a colleague from the newspaper where my late husband Charlie and I worked. I met two young adults who had to be conveyed about in wheelchairs and died prematurely from the lingering effects of atrophied muscles.
Roosevelt – adored by my mother and many others but despised by those who thought the patrician New Yorker was leading the nation into Communism — brought polio to public attention. Long after his death from a massive stroke just as World War II was ending, the world was shown pictures of him in a wheelchair. The president promoted the relaxing waters of a Georgia resort at Warm Springs, and an annual financial appeal was carried out to raise funds to fight the ailment.
The extent of his disability, however, was not revealed until some years after his death in another instance of truth not being entirely told.
So, poliomyelitis is not conquered. In fact, as a recent newspaper story reported, the oral vaccine used for decades to combat it, may in some rare cases bring it on.
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Soon the weather will grow chilly enough for me to get out my blanket with sleeves. It’s made of a fleecy soft acrylic material red in color, and I wrap myself in it for the late nights I keep since I often do my best writing around midnight.
I got the blanket on sale after Christmas about 15 years ago. They were readily available then, but it seems they were not commercially popular, for no mention is made of the product today.
It seems such blankets are an example of a fad. That’s a product or practice that appears suddenly, may or may not find favor and continue to be useful or quickly disappears from public attention. Consider most popular songs which drown the soul in memories when played decades later.
Unlike a fad which soon disappears, a fashion lasts a bit longer. My closet contains entirely garments nearly all in the colors of blue and green, gray and brown. Seldom do I buy something in a bright color although on the rare occasions when I do, someone comments favorably on it.
I have to be me.
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News from the daily paper that the congregation of Belmont Baptist Church in Southeast Roanoke is turning the big old structure into what will become a series of affordable apartments is not surprising to me. Over the years I have several times written of adjustments that are being made there to serve the neighborhood which has changed greatly since my arrival as a young reporter of news of churches in the city many decades ago.
Pastor and members are now, in my opinion, serving the folk of their community as Jesus taught.
