Hanging Out with Grandpat in the 1948 Polio Epidemic

The front of the book that Martha authored with a photo of her and Gaston on the front. 

One of my friends asked if I would write about the polio epidemic of 1948, so here is the letter to my grands that describes what I remember about it.

 Letters to my Grandchildren:  

Summer of 1948 in Cleveland County, NC

In May of 1948, my classmates and I finished the fifth grade and were looking forward to a fun early summer before we returned to begin the sixth grade in mid-June.  However, the poliovirus changed that summer for us and changed one of my friend’s life forever.  My classmate, Martha Mason, contracted polio. *

I remember that summer we did not go to school, churches were closed and everyone was warned to pretty much stay at home.  For my sister, our friend Betty Jo, who lived next door, and me polio interrupted our summer very little.  We were out in the country where we played outside as we always had, but we did listen to a Sunday school lesson on Sunday mornings broadcast by WOHS, the local Shelby radio station, rather than going to Double Springs Baptist Church. My parents read the daily papers and commented on the many cases of polio that were occurring in the county, mainly children, and often there would be mention of a child dying. It really didn’t hit home to me, because these were children I did not know.   I don’t remember being frightened but I can imagine my parents and other parents were terrified of the epidemic (I don’t know if it was a pandemic then or not.)

Neither we nor my Grandma had telephones but received news through the newspapers or through the grapevine.  One Sunday my Aunt Frances who lived in the Pleasant Ridge community, closer to Lattimore, brought us very bad news via the grapevine. She had learned that my classmate, Martha Mason of Lattimore, had contracted polio and that her older brother Gaston had died from the disease. She knew that Martha was in a hospital, in Asheville I think, but she was not aware of how sick she was. Now that someone I knew, someone who was my friend had the disease, polio suddenly seemed real to me.  It was pretty sobering to eleven- year- old me.

Another event that occurred because of polio, perhaps the same summer of 1948, but it could have been during another outbreak, really scared my parents. We did not have a washing machine at the time, so whenever we had a load of dirty clothes (once or twice a week) Daddy on his way to work would drop these off with a lady who lived across from Eskridge Grove Baptist Church and who laundered our clothes.  The basket would be returned with the clothes clean, beautifully ironed and folded. Then one of her children contracted polio while a basket of our clothes was at her house.  When Daddy brought these home, although they were clean, ironed and folded, he built a big fire under a black wash pot that belonged to Grandma, filled the pot with water, and boiled them for a long time, before he would let us near them. (That washpot is now in my yard filled with pansies.) One of you will undoubtedly inherit it so please cherish it.)

The polio epidemic of 1948 is the only epidemic I experienced before this current 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.  I think many more people are going to die from this one.  Our state is now on lockdown where citizens are encouraged to “stay home”, and I am following those suggestions. 

Photo from the internet of some unknown patient, not Martha, but the iron lung is like the one she lived in.

*Martha not only survived, but she led a remarkable life despite being a quadriplegic and spending most of the rest of her life, she lived to her early 70s, in an iron lung.  She graduated from Lattimore High School, Gardner-Webb College, and Wake Forest University with honors (Phi Beta Kappa) and lived to write a book about her life.  I have several copies of her book so I think there will be one for each of you, and please read it. What an inspiration!

There will be more letters about my friendship with Martha.