Nonagenarians recall living with polio scare, how that compares with COVID-19 - Cadillac News

Nonagenarians recall living with polio scare, how that compares with COVID-19 - Cadillac News

Nonagenarians recall living with polio scare, how that compares with COVID-19 - Cadillac News

Posted: 27 Dec 2020 09:00 PM PST

The last time Americans waited this anxiously for a new vaccine was more than six decades ago, and even then, people had mixed feelings about both the disease and the cure.

George Gruenberg, 92, was about 4 or 5 years old at the time he developed polio, which crippled one of his legs and made it very difficult to move.

"My mother used to help drag me around the house,' Gruenberg said. "I had trouble sleeping because it hurt so bad. I had leg aches at night and couldn't walk. I had to use my other leg to get around.'

As a result of his affliction, Gruenberg had to postpone a year of his schooling and when he returned, he completed kindergarten and first grade in a single year to catch up with his class.

Sometime after he returned to school, Gruenberg remembers that he was given a "sugar cube' that contained one of the earliest vaccines made for polio.

"So I wouldn't get it again,' Gruenberg said. "It helped.'

Although he was quite young at the time he became ill with polio, Gruenberg recalls that people were very worried about the mysterious disease.

"People were scared for years about polio,' Gruenberg said. "When people got polio, they couldn't do anything. I suffered a lot of pain for a lot of years.'

Currently, Gruenberg is dealing with a very painful pinched nerve in his back, which may be one of the long-term side effects of the polio of his youth, although doctors aren't certain there's a connection between the two.

Gruenberg said he and his wife, Judy, have remained quarantined in their Merritt-area home since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring. Considering his age and some underlying health problems both he and Judy are dealing with, they didn't want to take any chances.

"It's been really hard,' Judy said in regard to their isolation from friends and family.

Despite the difficulties they've gone through and Gruenberg's past run-ins with infectious diseases, he said he would be hesitant to sign up for the COVID-19 vaccine right away.

"I wouldn't trust it,' Gruenberg said. "I would like to see it out longer and more proven. Plus I would probably have to go somewhere to get it.'

Cliff Sjogren, 92, of Cadillac, said he knew a boy in elementary school who became ill with polio in the 1930s and had to be removed from the class and placed in a different facility away from his classmates.

"It scared the dickens out of me,' Sjogren said. "Here was this young person I knew who suddenly couldn't walk. It bothered me for months.'

At the time, Sjogren said he doesn't remember people being overly worried about polio, perhaps because it had been around for several decades up to that point.

"I don't remember it ever being discussed in the family,' Sjogren said. "I might have asked something like, 'Am I going to get this mommy?' but that boy was the only one I know of in my school that got it.'

Throughout the worst of the polio years, Sjogren said he doesn't recall giving it too much thought, with the exception of the one instance when it affected someone he knew.

"It didn't bother me, personally,' Sjogren said. "I had a positive feeling that it wouldn't happen to me. Maybe I'm still like that today. I haven't done a whole lot of worrying about COVID.'

That isn't to say Sjogren isn't taking precautions: not since he was serving in the Navy as a young man has he been alone on Thanksgiving and Christmas, like he was this year.

"I never go to my mailbox without having my mask on, mostly out of consideration for other people,' Sjogren said. "I just have a feeling that if I got it, I'd be able to deal with it.'

While memories of things that happened many decades ago can fade with time, the real effects that polio had on the community can be seen in crystal clarity by reading newspaper reports from those days.

A casual glance within the Cadillac Evening News archives of a one-month period before the widespread dissemination of the vaccine showed the devastating impact of the polio virus on a local level.

In August of 1952, notices regularly were printed of young people developing polio, becoming partially or fully paralyzed and even dying.

The problem of polio-related sickness was so bad in the Cadillac area that Mercy Hospital devoted an entire floor of the hospital to treating those who were infected.

"The third floor of Mercy Hospital is being reserved for polio patients and suspected cases, where they are in isolation, it is announced,' read a notice in the Cadillac Evening News.

"There are now 14 polio cases, all mild in form except those of Mrs. Harry Sterling and Judy Nolf, who are marked 'poor.' It was expected that Mrs. Neal Schaaf, 120 Granite Street, would be dismissed today ... Some Red Cross nurses are assisting the regular hospital staff in giving the hot pack treatments. A hot pack machine has been given the hospital by Bernard Schumaker of Marion, whose wife is one of the patients.'

Even as kids were coming down with the sickness at a rate of several per week, public health officials kept their eyes on the light at the end of the tunnel.

"Wexford County is 'over the hump' in its cases, Dr. C.E. Merritt, director of District Health Department No. 1 believes,' the Cadillac Evening News reported. "There was only one new case this week ... Others diagnosed during the week were taken ill previously, he pointed out ... Total Wexford cases has reached 20, the doctor said, 17 of them being in Mercy Hospital here, the others in Traverse City. Of those here two have gone home and two to the Traverse City hospital for follow-up treatment. The hospital has also had four cases from outside the county. The doctor emphasized that children should have plenty of rest, keep from getting chilled (swimming not good) and should play only with their own groups, not getting into crowds.'

Within the month of August alone, several local kids succumbed to the disease, including a 14-year-old girl from Hoxeyville, a 11-year-old girl from Manton and a 17-year-old Tustin athlete who was reportedly being watched closely by a Detroit Tiger scout.

As families around Northern Michigan and across the country weathered the disease and death caused by the virus, health care authorities did their best to study the affliction and come up with theories as to its causes and the best ways to avoid it.

"The doctor said he had advised against holding a picnic for 150 children on grounds of food being served and lack of adequate sanitation,' the Cadillac Evening News reported in 1952. "Questioned about movies and the fair, the doctor stated operation of these is all right as he does not feel that there is danger. While the condition is not to be minimized it is not so alarming, Dr. Merritt said, but particular care should be taken that children have more rest than usual. Although there is no isolation law for polio cases he believes it best if children do not contact those in families having polio. Polio infection, according to most authorities, is transmitted through intestinal contact and personal hygiene for children, especially washing the hands before mealtime is important, he said. Called an intestinal-aural infection the sick or carriers can convey it to the well individuals by their hands.'

The good news that worried parents had been waiting for finally came in April of 1955, when Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was approved for widespread application in the U.S.

The first day of sign-up, hundreds of parents in the Cadillac area signed their kids up to receive the vaccination.

"Children in the first and second grades will receive the vaccine, with the consent of the parents, under the auspices of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the medical profession, without charge,' the Cadillac Evening News reported. "Parents of 407 first and second grade students in the public and parochial schools have given their consent to the use of the Salk polio vaccine. This is 91% of the total number of students eligible ... In both Wexford and Missaukee counties, rural schools showed nearly 100% parental acceptance of the plan, while the percentages fall off in the municipality schools in both counties.'

Shots also were available to adults, for a fee.

"The action by the local medical society followed the recommendation from the State Medical Society that the injection of the vaccine by physicians in their offices be done for a specific fee of $2 per injection in addition to the actual cost of the vaccine,' journalists reported. "One of the pharmaceutical houses reports the distribution of poliomyelitis vaccine presents one of the largest supply problems of a temporary nature that has ever been faced by the pharmaceutical industry.'

Despite a few tears (see picture on A1), children generally took to the vaccine.

A Cadillac Evening News reporter wrote: "The staff of the Wexford County Health Unit, and volunteer women workers were high in their praise for Cadillac's children and those of the rural areas, numbering 557, who received the Salk vaccine shots in Monday's polio clinic. Mrs. Anna Marie Nelson, public health nurse, declared the nurses as well as volunteers were expecting for the most part, a tearful group of youngsters. They were surprised to carry the program out in record time, inoculating the 557 first and second graders by 3 p.m. The children responded 'beautifully' accepting the serum with little display of emotion, she added.'

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