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“After six weeks, I was weaned from the iron lung to a rocking bed. At the end of six months I was transferred to a rehabilitation center. I now realize that this is where I was gradually launched back into society.”
Check out where: http://www.rooseveltrehab.org/
Warm Springs was always the reference point for Mom of when things changed in her life. Not when she got polio. It was when she returned home from Warm Springs. My brother and sisters have memories from before Mom got polio, how she played, cooked, used the “wringer” washer, hosted parties in the basement, learned to drive and other really cool stories also captured in pictures and home movies. Mom and Dad were rather ordinary, maybe a bit admirable yet hardly unique from others who married and had children through the 1950s.
HBO made a movie titled “Warm Springs” about Eleanor & Franklin Delano Roosevelt and how the President found and launched the Georgia facility. The movie was produced and distributed in 2005, the year Mom died, which is a delightful synchronicity for me. It’s a really good movie and I’ll admit I cried more than once while I watched. I love the differences between what was created under FDR during the 1920s and what it became in 1960 when Mom was there and beginning its transformation to what it is today.
My sisters and I met in Warm Springs, GA this week, our first trip to visit The Roosevelt Foundation. We heard many stories how the polio patients and the staff worked together for individual solutions. Polio was described as a tornado, leaving random or total destruction of the body, to be rebuilt. In most cases the polio survivors became overachievers. J
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This is H.G. Bowden, head of the Brace Shop at Warm Springs, GA for 38 years until he recently retired, with Rose, Sharon, Me and Rita Kitts in the chair.
As H.G. talked about working with the polio individuals, his respect at their determination still colors his words. There is no doubt he and his team felt privlidged to create tools and supports, specific to the person's needs.
He explained only the best materials were used, crafted and polished so each splint and brace was as strong and smooth as possible. |
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This is a close up view of Mom's handsplint designed specifically for her.
Modifications were made over the years. |
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