Glen Bellows, Scott County

Interviewee: Glen Bellows
Interviewer: Kate Scott
Date of Interview: September 25, 2007
Run Time: Approximately 60M

Cassette
Biographical Data Form
Oral History Release       
Photographs (2)
Transcript

In this excerpt, Bellows recalled his memories of the acute stage of polio. He said, “That morning I got up and I couldn’t get up.  I just couldn’t even get out of bed.  Within an hour we were on our way to Fort Dodge but our house had a very steep stairway and, bless his heart, my dad – I probably weighed about 125 or something, and he weighed about 200 – so he’s a strong guy.  He carried me down those steps and those steps are dangerous.  They should have never have been built that steep.  He carried me clear out to the car. He took the seat back off so I could lie down on the trip to Fort Dodge and there he was driving 100 miles one way with the seat back, if you can imagine.  I kept wondering…supposed he needed that at an emergency stop and couldn’t push on the pedal hard enough because there was no seat back to stabilize him? That was kind of interesting thing about the trip.  Well, we got down there and they had an approach to polio.  There were a couple three polio patients there.  I was in an iron lung for a while.  Twenty-four hours a day for a couple days…then, the hours in the machine decreased day by day so by the end of about three weeks I was clear out of it.”