 |
| (Observer photo) |
Triumph on Baker Road: How the Walsh Family Defeated Polio
In September of 1955, Keron and Anne Walsh and their 14 children were on their family farm a few miles north of Durand preparing for the opening of the new school year when five-year-old Rose complained of a terrible headache. An immediate trip to the family doctor identified the culprit—Rose had contracted polio, one of the most dreaded diseases of the era. Before the month ended, 11 of the children were diagnosed with polio. Following is an excerpt from a book written by two of the Walsh sisters, Rose Walsh Landers and Sue Walsh Cocoma, and Mike Waller about the Walsh family’s two-year battle with polio and how the town of Durand rallied to support them. The book, “Triumph on Baker Road: How the Walsh Family Defeated Polio,” is available on amazon.com for $16.95.
The night before the opening day of school, the Dolan family, who lived up the hill from our farmhouse on Baker Road, dropped by for a short visit. Rose told our cousin Charlotte that she wasn’t feeling well. Charlotte stayed away from Rose the rest of the evening for fear of getting sick and missing the first day of school.
The next morning, on Thursday, Sept. 1, the big day arrived. Everyone was scampering around the house getting ready to catch the school bus when five-year-old Rose woke up and announced to her sister, Alice:
“I see snakes.”
***
Rose started complaining of a terrible headache. Sue was in the living room, waiting for the bus, when Mom asked her to help Rose tie her shoes.
The bus, driven as usual by Burdette Hanford, pulled into our gravel driveway. One by one everyone except Lorraine and the three little girls scampered on. Lorraine had already started packing her new Samsonite luggage, her high school graduation gift, as she prepared to go to college. Dave and Ed, who had been the first ones up, two hours before the bus arrived, were the last ones on.
Shortly after the bus left, Mom raced to the barn to tell Dad about Rose. Mom then called Dr. Charles A. Leonard, our family physician for several years. They then changed their clothes, gathered up Rose, 3-year-old Fran and 1 ¾-year-old Molly and drove to Dr. Leonard’s office in Rockford.
Dr. Leonard said Rose was very ill and ordered a spinal tap for her at St. Anthony’s Hospital. They drove to St. Anthony’s and waited for the results of the lab tests. Soon Dr. Leonard appeared in the hall and announced: “Rose is in the first stages of polio. The next 24 hours will be very critical. Take her to Township Hospital, where she will be put in isolation.”
Mom remembered asking: “But what about the other children? What can we do?”
“We don’t even know how polio is spread,” Dr. Leonard replied. “There is nothing we can do. Just wait and see. There is no quarantine. The children should just go to school as usual.”
Dad and Mom took Rose to Rockford Township Hospital where they handed her over to a nurse who told them where to wait. After a while the nurse returned with a brown paper bag containing Rose’s clothes. She told Dad and Mom they could not visit Rose in her room. The only way to see her was to go outside and step up on a platform under her window where they could see Rose in bed and could talk to her through a screen when the window was open.
Rose was scheduled to stay in isolation for seven days. Mom and Dad stayed for a short time, then bid Rose farewell and drove home in a daze.
Mom didn’t wait long to call her youngest sister, Aunt Pat Kenucane in Beloit. “We have just taken Rose to the hospital,” Mom said. “She has polio.” A few minutes later she ended the conversation by saying, “Well, if none of the other children get it we’ll be OK.”
***
About a week after Rose was admitted to Township Hospital, Dave complained one evening that he felt something tingling in his back. He asked Mom if she could see anything.
She saw nothing.
The next morning Alice recalled Dave saying his back hurt as he walked down the steep stairway on his way to do chores. He also had a sore throat, headache and stiff neck. It was Friday, Sept. 9.
After all the children except Dave left for school, Mom called Dr. Leonard, who told her to bring Dave to his office on East State Street in Rockford. Dave was so sick that he could barely hold up his head during the drive.
After arriving at Dr. Leonard’s office, the doctor examined Dave, asking him to lower his head until his chin touched his chest.
He could not do it.
A spinal tap was ordered immediately. The doctor sent them to St. Anthony’s. The painful spinal tap confirmed that “Dave, our 6-foot, 2 1/2-inch, 17-year-old son, beginning his senior year at Durand High School, had polio,” Mom wrote.
Dr. Leonard sent them to Township Hospital. Upon arrival a nurse met Dave and escorted him away.
“We again waited until she returned and handed us another brown paper bag containing Dave’s clothes,” Mom said.
The nurse said Dave was put in the same room with Rose and repeated the rule: no visitors in the room. They could see both of them by going to the same outside window they had been using to “visit” Rose.
They hurried outside to the window and “looked at our children who a few days ago seemed healthy and happy,” Mom said. “We knelt on the crude wooden steps and prayed to God to help our stricken children.”
By the end of the day nearly everyone at school knew Dave was in the hospital with polio. Fear showed up at school like a creeping fog. Many of the guys thought about the things they did with Dave, especially swimming at Bare Donkey Beach in Otter Creek, and were scared they might get polio too.
Fear also kept many people from going into our house, but did not deter the tight-knit group of Dad and Mom’s closest family members. Over the past week after Rose contracted polio, they had already closed ranks to encircle Mom and Day with love and support. With the news of Dave’s hospitalization, the circle grew tighter and the safety net of support grew stronger.
***
On Saturday, Sept. 10, after visiting Dave at Township Hospital and transferring Rose to St. Anthony’s for more intensive physical therapy, Mom and Dad returned home to discover that Ed had been squirrel hunting and bagged one “over south.” He asked Mom to cook it the next day. When Ed got up the next morning, he complained of feeling very tight across his chest.
It was nearly noon Sunday when Mom and Dad returned to Rockford to visit Rose at St. Anthony’s. They planned to visit Dave at Township on their way home. After seeing Rose, Mom phoned Dr. Leonard to inquire about Dave.
“He’s in a critical stage,” the doctor said. “I would prefer he have no company.”
Then Mom mentioned Ed’s sore chest.
“Do not go to Township Hospital to see David,” the doctor replied, “but go straight home and bring Ed in for a spinal tap at St. Anthony’s.”
They did, and waited again for the test results. Dr. Leonard came down the hall with the bad news: Ed had an even more severe case of polio than either Dave or Rose.
As instructed, Mom and Dad drove to Township Hospital “for the third time in eight days to deliver our second oldest son, age 16, a brilliant boy with sterling qualities, a boy who would never again go hunting or taste a meal of squirrel,” Mom said.
They turned Ed over to a nurse, who returned shortly and presented them with another brown paper bag, this one holding Ed’s clothes.
They were told to go to a different set of steps outside the hospital where they could look through an open window to visit with Ed. After visiting awhile, they went to the steps outside Dave’s window to visit with him. He had been in the hospital only a day but already some of his friends had visited at the window, unaware of the doctor’s orders.
Mom and Dad then “hurried home to tell Father Driscoll that we wished him to say Mass for the children.” Father Joseph A. Driscoll acted at once, scheduling a triduum, a series of special religious observances, over the next three days at St. Mary Catholic Church in Durand starting on Monday, Sept. 12.
Life at home began rapidly changing as Monday arrived. Dr. Leonard ordered a quarantine for all of the children at home and a close watch on those suspected of already having at least mild cases of polio—Anne, twins Joan and Julie, Sue, Frances and Molly.
***
Meanwhile, the national press had begun reporting on our family’s ordeal. Stories by the Associated Press and United Press started appearing in newspapers all over the country and in other parts of the world.
Speaking to a Chicago Herald-American reporter, Dad said: “I can’t understand it. My children are the only children in the hospital with polio. It’s as though we were picked out.”
***
A special rosary service was scheduled for Tuesday evening at St. Mary’s as well as a special prayer service at the Methodist Church in Durand. Before attending St. Mary’s service, Mom checked with Dr. Leonard about Dave’s condition. The doctor said Dave was very ill but she might help him and all of us best by attending the service.
Except for the front two pews, St. Mary’s was jammed, with people standing in the back of the church and half-way up the two outside aisles. A large crowd also attended the Methodist church service.
Midway through the St. Mary’s service, Mom felt a tap on her shoulder. Both Dave and Ed had taken a turn for the worse—“they were not expected to survive the night,” Mom said—and she and Dad rushed off to Township Hospital to be with their two oldest sons as the crisis unfolded.
From The Observer, September 25, 1955
Stricken Walsh Family's Faith Enriched by Polio
DURAND--The story of the Keron Walsh family of this small farm community is now known throughout the world. It is the story of a family who, through deep and abiding faith, were able to face up to a trial of overwhelming propotions and emerge richer and surer in their faith and family unity. It is the story of a family who, because of self-sufficiency, were too proud to ask for financial and material help, but humble enough to ask for prayers. In so doing, they found the humiluty to accept the donations from a sympathetic America.When Rose Ellen, youngest and first to be hit by polio, was taken to the hospital, neighbors immediately planned to meet at St. Mary Church to offer prayers for her recovery. As one neighbor said: "We felt that that was what the family would want. We knew their deep faith."
As other members of the family succumbed to polio, special church services were organized by friends. Classmates of the children started Rosary groups, and assisted the pastor, Father Joseph A. Driscoll, in gaining attendance at a triduum of prayer. It was concluded on the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.
The family then asked the area and people of the country to offer prayers for the recovery of their children. Father Driscoll, Lorraine (Walsh) and her aunt, Mrs. Leonard Walsh, warmed the hearts of the nation in their simple and humble appeal for prayers over the national television program, "Strike It Rich."
Neighbors and friends, realizing the mounting financial costs, finally prevailed upon the family to set up a fund. But only after the family had stipulated that all funds in excess of emergency expenses be donated to the Winnebago County chapter of the National Polio Foundation.
The family has literally been overcome by the gifts and letters received. Neighbors have taken over the operation of the Walsh 360-acre farm. Others have sent in complete meals and volunteered to do other household chores.
Characteristically, the Walshes find it difficult to accept outside assistance. Last week, girls from the Farm School offered to do the family washing. Mrs. Walsh, however, continued to do most of it, as she felt she was not overloaded.
Father Driscoll has been promoting the cause of the family since the disease struck. He remembers their devotion to the family Rosary, and their May shrines at home. The children proudly wear their Sacred Heart badges, Green Scapulars, and other medals.
"It is a family" he says, "which has always known the necessity of prayer. And they still know it and practice it."
He has again asked the people of the country, especially of the Rockford diocese, to keep praying for the continued recovery of the children.
Photo caption: PRAYING FOR FAMILY -- Younger members of the Keron Walsh family of Durand kneel for a group Rosary for the recovery of their brothers and sisters stricken by polio. Eight of the 14 children of Mr. and Mrs. Keron Walsh were hit by the disease in the past two weeks. Shown above are: Tom, 6; Bernard, 7; Susan, 11 (recovered from a minor attack); Alice,15; Lorraine, 18; Anne, 15 (also recovered from the disease); and Bill, 10. A sister Frances, was still confined to bed with polio, while the two oldest boys, David, 17 and Edward, 16, are in iron lungs; twin sisters, Joan and Julia are in good condition, and Rose Ellen, 5, is receiving therapy.
