Tood's Town XV
It was 1947 and I was in the third grade when I first encountered the unexpected death of a friend.
His name was Paul Keller. Paul lived in a small house located on the west side of Route 65 about a mile and a quarter north of Tood's Town. The house was covered with a type of tar paper siding which had coarse grains of sand embedded in it. It was a common type of siding for houses at that time.
I also remember that there was an old pine tree in the front yard of Paul's house.
Paul was an all-American boy. Physically fit and very active.
If I remember correctly, I got to know Paul sometime in the middle of my third grade year and we became good friends over the remainder of the school year. I remember looking forward to going to school to be able to see Paul.
Late in the school year, Paul stopped coming to school. We were told that Paul had leukemia. We didn't understand much about leukemia until Paul died. In 1947, leukemia was a frightening, unpreventable, and incurable disease. Paul's death created an empty space in the pit of my stomach that didn't leave for several weeks.
Years later, when I rode the school bus or drove my car along Route 65 from Tood's Town to Columbus Grove on my way to high school or otherwise, the sight of that pine tree would bring back the empty feeling in my stomach. Even today, some 60 years later, when Paul comes to my mind, I feel the lump of emptiness.
It was near the time of Paul's death that polio was epidemic in the United States. In Cairo several people were struck down with paralysis caused by polio. Our family escaped infection (or at least the paralysis) but a couple of my school friends contracted polio and suffered permant crippling damage to their arms and legs. Sometimes whole bodies were affected by nerve damage caused by the virus, but more commonly nerve damage resulted in arms and legs that were partially or completely paralyzed. For those who had paralysis of the diaphram, the hospitals used "iron lungs" to assist in breathing.
At that time, the origins and method of transmission of the polio virus were unknown to the people of Tood's Town. I remember that there was much speculation among the adults that the water in swimming pools was a source of the polio virus.
It was sometime in the mid-1950s that Dr. Jonas Salk developed a "killed virus" vaccine that prevented infection by the polio virus and several years later when Dr. Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine made from live polio virus. The Salk vaccine was delivered by hypodermic needles and Sabin was a dot of liquid on a sugar cube that was eaten. If I remember correctly, I got an injection of the Salk vaccine from Dr. Miller and later got 3 doses of the Sabin vaccine distributed on Sunday afternoons in local school buildings.
Dillard Farnsworth
His name was Paul Keller. Paul lived in a small house located on the west side of Route 65 about a mile and a quarter north of Tood's Town. The house was covered with a type of tar paper siding which had coarse grains of sand embedded in it. It was a common type of siding for houses at that time.
I also remember that there was an old pine tree in the front yard of Paul's house.
Paul was an all-American boy. Physically fit and very active.
If I remember correctly, I got to know Paul sometime in the middle of my third grade year and we became good friends over the remainder of the school year. I remember looking forward to going to school to be able to see Paul.
Late in the school year, Paul stopped coming to school. We were told that Paul had leukemia. We didn't understand much about leukemia until Paul died. In 1947, leukemia was a frightening, unpreventable, and incurable disease. Paul's death created an empty space in the pit of my stomach that didn't leave for several weeks.
Years later, when I rode the school bus or drove my car along Route 65 from Tood's Town to Columbus Grove on my way to high school or otherwise, the sight of that pine tree would bring back the empty feeling in my stomach. Even today, some 60 years later, when Paul comes to my mind, I feel the lump of emptiness.
It was near the time of Paul's death that polio was epidemic in the United States. In Cairo several people were struck down with paralysis caused by polio. Our family escaped infection (or at least the paralysis) but a couple of my school friends contracted polio and suffered permant crippling damage to their arms and legs. Sometimes whole bodies were affected by nerve damage caused by the virus, but more commonly nerve damage resulted in arms and legs that were partially or completely paralyzed. For those who had paralysis of the diaphram, the hospitals used "iron lungs" to assist in breathing.
At that time, the origins and method of transmission of the polio virus were unknown to the people of Tood's Town. I remember that there was much speculation among the adults that the water in swimming pools was a source of the polio virus.
It was sometime in the mid-1950s that Dr. Jonas Salk developed a "killed virus" vaccine that prevented infection by the polio virus and several years later when Dr. Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine made from live polio virus. The Salk vaccine was delivered by hypodermic needles and Sabin was a dot of liquid on a sugar cube that was eaten. If I remember correctly, I got an injection of the Salk vaccine from Dr. Miller and later got 3 doses of the Sabin vaccine distributed on Sunday afternoons in local school buildings.
Dillard Farnsworth
posted by Tood at 4:25 PM
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