Emmert, Roger - Dallas County

Tell us what you remember of the impact of polio:

My father was L. Dale Emmert. He was born on a farm north of Redfield, Iowa, on February 9, 1909. When he was 19 months old, he was stricken with infantile paralysis, now known as polio. He was treated by a Dr. Criley who at one point pronounced him dead. Someone, however noticed a spark of life and that spark was rekindled and my father lived well into his 80's. For about 40 of those years he was actively engaged in farming. I do not know how he was treated or what parts of his body were initially affected. The affects that I know were on the right side of his face and his right shoulder. The muscles on the right side of his face were weakened and that side kind of drooped and he could not completely close his right eye. His smile was crooked as a result as well. The inability to completely close his eye caused him a lot of grief on the farm because of the dust. His eye would water a great deal as one can imagine. When plastic surgery was developed, he had some work done on the eye which helped, but did not completely eliminate the problem. His right shoulder also drooped and that made it difficult for him to be fitted with suit coats. A tailor would have to put extra padding in the right shoulder to make it even with the left one. To my knowledge, there was not a difference in strength between his right and left arms or legs for that matter.

My father lived with the physical effects of polio most of his life. In addition to the physical problems there were the emotional or psychological affects. When he was young, adults felt sorry for him, and his parents to some extent, but were happy, of course, that he survived. In his senior years, he was very self conscious about his drooping face. Occasionally children in their innocence would point at him and ask their parents what was wrong with that man. In his later years he became somewhat reclusive and the effects of polio may have been a major reason.

One might think that because of my father's experience, my parents would have been especially protective of me as I grew up. I was born in 1942 and believe I can recall the celebration surrounding the development of the vaccines. I know that I took the full course of the oral vaccine, but I do not recall that I was restricted by my parents from crowds, etc, during the years when there were the biggest scares. One could have understood if they had been a bit paranoid about polio in those years. A boy in our church who was a couple of years older than I got polio. He survived but had a lasting speech problem. Many believed that the great amount of time that church members spent on their knees praying for him made the difference. I'm sure our congregation was far from unique in that respect and the deaths of so many children tested the faith of lots of people.

I imagine that the development of the Salk vaccine was considered by many to be the answer to their prayers. Regardless of how it came to be, because of the tremendous number of lives it saved, the development of the polio vaccine must certainly be considered to be one of the major accomplishments of biological science.