Polio Memories From Norma Quinn Potter’s Daughter

 Last week we relived Norma’s brush with polio as a young woman in 1952. Norma’s daughter Neddy was profoundly affected by her mom’s illness. She was only 6, but she remembers it perfectly. Here are her memories:

“My mother was hospitalized in the days when no children were allowed in the hallowed halls. Because my mother could not talk on the phone and I was not allowed to visit, I envisioned a far worse scenario. I was sure she had died and no one wanted to tell me. I was only 6 years old and in the first grade. Word spread quickly throughout my school and I very soon became the object of stares [and] whispers and I was almost a pariah that other children avoided as they were afraid they might ‘catch’ it from me. The time dragged on and on until Mommy came home – actually she came home to Mother’s (my maternal grandmother, Leone Quinn). I remember Mother [grandmother] boiling water and adding towels to heat through. Then she would take the towels out with tongs and gingerly place them on my mommy’s legs. Mother’s treatment was more humane than that at the hospital because she protected the tender skin with a layer of towels. After these heat treatments came the massaging and the stretching. I was not allowed to touch the hot towels, but I was allowed to help with the massaging.

“I seemed to take to this part of the therapy, and I became obsessed with this being ‘my job.’ It was actually a rewarding experience to see progress and how much improvement was made each time I worked with her legs. Of course, we just about started all over the next day, but the improvement could be seen quite clearly. The hot towel treatment was discontinued after a time, but the massaging continued for years as the leg muscles would tighten up during the day and needed a little help in the evenings. It was very difficult for me to give up ‘my job’ when my mother and Herb married when I was 16, and he took over the massaging. This had been a bonding experience for my mother and me.

“One of the things my mother mentioned was the two-handed lipstick application. I had not realized at the time why she used two hands and, as often the case, the child learns from the mother with no questions asked. When I started wearing lipstick, I just automatically used two hands just as I had seen my mother do many times. It was not until some time later that she asked me why I used two hands and I replied that I did it just like she did. I still find myself doing that sometimes today, all these years later.

“One of the joys of my childhood are the memories of my mother and I singing together. The most devastating loss to me was the fact that my mother could no longer sing. The paralyzed vocal cord was a permanent reminder of the polio days.

“Looking back, it is clear that we all have been blessed and that it could have been so much worse with lasting disabilities. I know she thinks that her story is of no interest to others, but I disagree. I think her story needed to be told. It is a story from her past and it has influenced my life, and I have lived to see and admire her fortitude and cheerful attitude in the challenges of her life. There are many things to be learned from trials, whether we are living them or just observing others. Observing seems to be the far better choice, but then we don’t usually get to choose.”

Thank you, Neddy, for sharing these stories. It must have been very hard to go through this as a child. Today we take for granted the absence of deadly diseases such as polio. Polio affected kids and young adults and, if it didn’t kill them, it often crippled them. Memories of the past like these should remind us how fortunate we are today.