JoAnn Hall, Adair County

Interviewee: Joann Hall
Interviewer: Annette Wetteland
Date of Interview: October 30, 2007
Location of Interview: Greenfield, IA
Run Time: Approximately 50M

Cassette
Biographical Data Form
Oral History Release
Photographs (10)
Smith, Eugene L. They Gird the Earth For Christ, (Chicago: The Advance for Christ and His Church, 1952), 11-12. (Essay about Joann titled, “Polio and Prayer” written by Hall’s Pastor.)
Transcript

Joann was diagnosed with polio at Blank Memorial Children’s Hospital in Des Moines in 1950. She was sixteen years old and looking forward to homecoming celebrations at Menlo High School. Joann started experiencing a terrible headache and stiff neck. After resting and visiting an osteopath, symptoms worsened. Finally, her parents took her to Broadlawns where they recommended she go to Blank for a spinal tap. In her oral history, Joann recalled, “They gave me a spinal tap there at Blank and diagnosed me with bulbar and paralytic polio. It just progressed there from that night. I was hurting so bad I could not walk. They put me in a wheelchair and took me right across from the nurses’ station. It was all windows. With the lights in the nurses’ station and the nurses’ communicating with each other and laughing and such, well, I just felt like I was the most abandoned person in the world. The doctor thought that I would need the iron lung and on Saturday night they put it outside my door.”

Joann never had to go into the iron lung, but she got to the point where she could not swallow or talk. Her parents, who lived an hour away, visited her in Des Moines every day for three months. Joann graduated from high school in 1951 and married her high school sweetheart a year later. Joann and her husband had five children. She is the proud grandmother of 8 grandchildren.