Oklahoma Voices: Brenda Nusbaum

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Transcript:

Today, is April 17th, 2007 we are here at the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library. My name is Phillis Eads Davidson I am going to interview my sister Brenda about her experiences with polio. Brenda tell me your full name, and where you were born and a little bit about your family before you had polio.

Well, my name is Brenda Lou Eads Nusbaum and I was born in Blue Oklahoma which is a small town about 9 miles east of Durant Oklahoma. And I was born in the old family home with newspaper covering the windows. That's how the neighbors knew that the Eads family had another baby, cause the babies were all born in the living room of the old house. My daddy, to tell a little bit about the family I was one of 10 children. 10 remaining children. My dad married and had four children. His wife and one of his babies died of TB and then 10 years later he married my mother which was Edna Duncan Eads. They had eight children, and then one of those children died of appendicitis which with the three from the first marriage and the seven from the second marriage that was the 10 children, the brothers and sisters that I was a part of. I was next to the youngest and the interviewer Phyllis Davidson is the baby of the family.

Were you old enough to walk on your own before you had polio?

Yes, I was 16 months old and as my mom used to tell the story. I didn’t just walk, but I ran. She told the story of a the game that she’d played with me. I would run and jump up on the bed and they had a cord tied to the bedpost to turn the light on and I would pull that cord, turn the light on and run away giggling. She would chase me time after time and it was just a fun game that we had together.

Please tell us about the time when you became ill with polio.

Well I don’t myself remember a lot about it because I was so young. But according to the stories that everyone else told, I was really ill and I must have been ill because we went to the doctors very few times in our lives in the country, but I was pretty ill and they took me to a doctor, he diagnosed tonsillitis and gave me a prescription, so my parents took me back home and gave me the prescription and I got a little bit better. The next day my older sister Noni and her friend took me to the pond to go swimming because I was still a little bit fussy and they thought that would make me happy. But when they put me down in the water I screamed as if I were in pain and after that I got even sicker. So, the next day my parents took me to another doctor and after examining me, the doctor told my dad to set me down on the floor so I could walk and when he did my legs just buckled underneath me. I remember my mom saying that she saw daddy cry very few times in his life but he really broke down right then when he heard that I had polio. The doctors asked them if there was any way that they could call home to let the family know that they needed to go immediately to Oklahoma City to the Cripple’s Children Hospital. They said they went to the old brown store; they called the Brown store in Blue and they relayed the message to the family and then they put me in an ambulance. They got in an ambulance with me and it took two hours to get Oklahoma City because they were blowing the sirens the whole way and going very fast because it was a serious situation.

How long were you in the hospital that first time and can you tell a little bit about that time?

Well, I was in the hospital a year almost a year. The way I understand it I had was put in isolation until the fever left and I began to recover. Then they moved me into a ward which is a large room with lots of other children in beds and in there they took care of us all. Then as I even got better, they sent me to the convalescent center in cripple, no the Bethany convalescent center in Bethany, Oklahoma and that’s where I spent a lot of my time because they did lots of physical therapy and they had to wrap hot towels around my legs, and different things for treatment. But when I first got to the Bethany convalescent center I still couldn’t even sit up. I was in a back brace and so a nurse took a special interest in me and really became almost like a second mother to me and her name was Phyllis Pearson. She encouraged me to try to sit up on my own and she put a bar above the bed so that I could grab hold of it and pull myself up into the sitting position but I would just cry and say that I couldn’t do it. But because I liked her so well one day I saw her going by the room and so I grabbed hold the bar and pulled up into the sitting position and I said hey Pearson and cause her name’s Phyllis Pearson and she came into the room and just as she walked into the room I fell back into the bed and couldn’t hold myself up any longer, but then she saw that I could do it and that was kind of the beginning of me beginning to recover from the polio and an interesting thing about this also is that my parents thought so much of Phyllis Pearson because of the way that she treated me. When my mom in fact when I came down with polio my mom was pregnant with Phyllis Davidson your interviewer here and they thought so much of Phyllis Pearson that that’s how Phyllis got her name.

Yes, and I’ve always wished that she had been named Kathy.

What was it like when you returned home after being away for almost a year?

Well let’s go back to the first, the question just before there was one another thing I wanted to say about that. When I was in the hospital in crippled children and Bethany hospital my parents couldn’t come see me very often because it was so far, and they had so many responsibility and so many children on the farm but I did have older brothers and sisters that were married or were and living in Oklahoma City that would come and look after me and visit me and take care of me as much as they could. Now then what did you say?

What was it like when you returned home after being away for almost a year?

Well as you can imagine I was 16 months old when I enter the hospital and I was over 2 years old when I got out of the hospital so everybody was just like strangers, and when I was in the wards in the hospital or the convalescent center boys and girls weren't mixed, they were separate wards. So, when I got home from the hospital, I looked around and I saw brothers and I said get those boys out of here. Cause I didn’t think I was supposed to be around boys. But finally, I did get accustomed to being part of the family again and one of the main things that the doctors told my parents was that to treat me just like all the other children as much as possible and they did do that I really, I know that they made a great effort but on the other hand myself I can’t see how they could have done it and I know that I was somewhat spoiled and Phyllis Davidson has said so many times.

That’s right!

And I know at times we would be walking on the streets in Durant and someone would see me, you know a little thing with crutches and I know it was heart wrenching and they would come up to me and give me money and there would be Phyllis standing right beside me and they wouldn’t give her any money and I don’t understand that but that’s kind of the way it was, but anyway it was just returning home was quite an adjustment each time.

Did you have to spend any more time in the hospital after that first time?

Yes I spent many times in hospital after that I had at least 10 surgeries and I was in the crippled Children's Hospital until I was ten years old and then they told my mom and dad that they had done all they could do so we didn't know what to where to go from there because I was still I believe I still had too long leg braces on and so dad, daddy had a friend that lived in Durant one the politicians his name was Sam Sullivan and he talked daddy into taking me to the Shriners hospital in Shreveport Louisiana to see if they could do anything else for me so I did have treatments in that hospital from the age of 10 until 16 that's as long as you could go to that hospital. I, a little story about that every time we would go to Shreveport for my treatments, I would ride in the back of the car we'd have to leave at 2:00 o'clock in the morning in order to be there for an 8:00 o'clock appointment or 9:00 o'clock appointment in the morning and I would get sick every time that I just dreaded it so bad. I think it was just from riding in the back of a car is what would determine but also I think it was a lot of nerves because I was dreading what they might say. They also while I was in Shreveport did, I had enough surgeries that I was able to quit wearing a full leg brace on my left leg and I had one just below the knee and they did surgeries on my right hand that was affected by polio also.

I'm surprised that they had a car that was good enough to get you to Shreveport all the way from Blue

Oh, that's another thing Sam Sullivan being the kind person that he was and knowing that we didn't have a very good car furnished even the car for us to drive to Shreveport.

So how did you feel when the doctors would tell you that you were going to have to stay in the hospital for another surgery?

Well every time I went in for a checkup as I said before I was so nervous I would sit there even up to the time that I was 16 years old and I would be determined that whatever the doctors said if they said I could was the checkup was good I didn't have to stay in the hospital I'd be okay and if they said I was going to have to stay in the hospital I would be okay and I wouldn't cry but even to the age of 16 I cried every time because it was that separation anxiety from my family and it's hard for anyone, but I remember the procedure of being admitted into the hospital first thing they would do they would give you a bath and clean clothes and put you in a nice comfortable bed and then I'd always make a friend and they, and this hospital was run by the Shriners and they did everything in the world that they could to make your experience fun. They had movies and crafts and games, they even had a circus come and then that would be inside the building and they do their circus tricks in the building and then they'd bring lots of toys with them. One time when I was dismissed on the day of one of the circus they sent enough toys home with me that it was just ridiculous and I even had a camera that really took pictures, a gumball machine it was just amazing and one time when I was in the hospital at Christmas time it was really sad because I wanted to be home with my family but the next morning when I woke up there was just a big pile of toys at the foot of the bed and if I'd been home I wouldn't have got me near that kind of a Christmas you know, so anyway another thing about that hospital in Shreveport that I wanted to add is the fact that on the piano in the Ward in the girls Ward and over one of the corners there's this large piano and they played that once in a while when they had someone come that could do it but on the top of the piano were wedding dolls it was the whole wedding ensemble there was the groom in a tuxedo I mean it's really fancy and also they had encouraged children that had been patients in the past to come back as married couples and visit you know so with these married dolls on the piano, I mean these wedding dolls on the piano and seeing these married couples come back that had had polio recovered actually married and had normal lives this all really encouraged me to think that in the future that I could have that too.

How did it feel to be away from your family?

Well like I said before it really was pretty difficult, it was not like being in the hospital these days when you go into the hospital now you are you had your surgery and you're out in two or three days and back then you went into the hospital, you stayed they did an evaluation, they tried to build your health up to the peak so that you're healthy enough to have surgery in fact they even gave us special foods. I remember in the evening just before we go to bed they they'd come around with fruit for each child as a snack and I know they did a stool specimen probably to find out what your body needed and like if you needed prunes your your freight was was prunes or somebody had bananas I usually got plums for some reason big nice plums but what was really funny is as soon as the nurse would leave that had given us our special foods we’d switch you know it didn't do any good but what they would do then try to build you up and make you really healthy then the doctors would come around they’d have a team of doctors come around and do a rounds each one of them would give their idea of what would be the best procedure for the surgery then they do the surgery, you'd recover from that you'd have a cast on your leg at one time I had a full body cast and that you know that was really a tough time. You would be in pain until the incision started healing and everything then as you recovered you’d finally get your cast off. Well you didn't get to go home then you still had to stay until they would do physical therapy and they had you walking again before you went home so I was in the hospital for months at a time.

Did you ever feel heartbroken or all alone?

Well what am I worst memories was a time that I felt really heartbroken and it was whenever I was probably pretty young and mom and daddy I know it was just so hard for them to leave me in the hospital and I started crying when I found out that I was going to have to stay and so did , and they didn't leave right away but finally they said well we're just going to go to lunch and if you’ll quit crying will come back and see you just before we leave so just don't cry and will be back to visit you before we leave. So they left and I laid there which you know for a child it seemed like a long time it might not have been very long and then finally I decided they had tricked me and I started crying. Well I got a letter from them later one of the nurses read it to me and they said that they had gone to lunch and just as they were about to my room I started crying and so they went on home, so that was such a heartbreaking experience for me to think that I was so close to them coming back to visit me and I started crying and anyway that kind of messed that up, but I did feel pretty heartbroken at that time and another time that I felt all alone in the hospital was when I was in Shreveport. On Sundays they would everyone would get a bath on Saturday night but on Sunday morning we got to choose out of in their bathroom they had a big rack of really pretty dresses they were lacy dresses and they were dresses made with satin and different just really pretty dresses because Sunday was visitors day and we'd get to pick a dress that we wanted to wear for Sunday so we get our bath we get all dressed up really pretty that make our beds especially neatly and we would just sit with our pillow behind us at the head of our bed waiting for our visitors. Well all of the other kids are most of the other kids had visitors but most of the time I didn't have visitors because my parents lived too far away and were too poor to come very often so that was hard that was hard to deal with but and but there were just a few times that I remember that I got the surprise of mom and daddy did get to make it and come see me and those were the most joyful times when they actually did get to come and visit and I wasn't expecting it. I do remember they had strangers that would come around other people that would come around and visit the kids that didn't have visitors occasionally and one time this lady asked me if I would like to have something the next week when she came in and I ask her for a bottle of hand lotion and she never came back so that was kind of sad too you know, but that it was really a lonely time on Sundays but I coped.

What was it like when you returned home once you had gotten older?

Well it was always joyful time when I was older because I knew my family then I remembered my family and on the Sundays that I was sitting there in the hospital on visitors day I was also thinking about my family and I remember that I, I would get brand new toys that had been given to me and I would line them up in my little what they would call a stand next to the bed was my old storage cabinet and I would put their toys there just real neatly and I would think this toy is for Phyllis and this toy is for Tom and this toy is for Tim and that was my way of being part of my family you know I guess and so anyway when I would return home mom would make a cake and would get to have a little party so I could give my gifts to my brothers and sisters and one time we've invited a little neighbor girl over there was poor and I gave her some of the gifts and it was all such fun and until the next day and then the next day I would say Phyllis can I play with that toy or Tom can I play with that toy or Tim can I play with that toy and they’d say no you gave him to us there ours now. I guess I missed them a little bit more than they missed me but as Phyllis said one time that was just probably part of my way of gaining acceptance back into the family.

Can you tell about some of the fun things you were able to do on the farm even though you had crutches and braces to deal with?

Well really I didn't let my handicap slow me down much at all and Phyllis could tell you that. I was all over that farm. I was we would go up in the barn and Phyllis and I would sit on the stalls somehow I would climb up on the top of the stalls and we'd take crackers and syrup and would sit up there with this syrup running through the holes in the crackers and just have a party and then also Phyllis and I had a little tea party set. One year at Christmas she got some little China dishes and I got some little plastic silverware and an actual little silverware box but it was plastic, looked like silverware, and we would have our fun little tea parties of cocoa and what Phyllis? What was our food that we ate? Crackers probably?

Probably crackers. Maybe, yeah.

I could also climb up on the top of the barn, I mean up to the rafters in the barn on the stacks of bales of hay and I don't know how I did that now but I would do it. I could swing over and when I would walk I didn't take steps I would kinda hop with my crutches when I was younger and I could hop over grass it was probably a couple of feet tall with no problem and when everybody else would go to the field they would put me in the back of the trailer and they’d throw the corn riding on top at me you know I'd be to waist deep in corn and I really enjoyed that until one day I got to looking around there was little spiders all in the corn and I never did that again but anyway I didn't let the handicap slow me down at all on the farm I just did everything everybody else did but I couldn't pick cotton, and one year mom said okay, everybody else has been picking cotton and they're making their money for school clothes so today we're all going to pick cotton for Brenda. They didn't like it and they didn't like it and my brothers and sister didn't pick good cotton near as hard that day. You know how that goes just brothers and sisters but anyway I'll never forget they earned for my school clothes $21.56 and that was pretty exciting.

But who's counting right? Do you remember swinging from the barn rope?

Yes.

Climbing up onto the hay and I would get the rope that was hanging down from the rafter in the center of the barn and bring it over to you and you’d grab up and swing down.

Yes we had a lot of fun on the farm.

What was it like when you had to start school?

Well that was that was kind of a different time. I remember going out and standing by the mailbox and we had a mailbox sticking down on a stick stuck down in one of our milk cans 'cause we lived on a dairy farm and until I was probably in about the 3rd grade or something my older brother Bob he just took care of me and he would lift me up on the bus every day up the steps on the bus, but when he graduated from high school then I had to start doing it by myself and that was kind of a hard time. I just went to school like the rest of the family at Blue school. Except for a few times whenever I was in the hospital during, I had to be in the hospital for the school time and I would go to school in the hospital actually that wasn't very often because usually my surgeries were in this summer. Anyway, when I started to Blue school like the rest of the kids there was no special education. I just went with the rest of the kids just like everybody else, but I did get one little treatment that was different. One of the, what do we say it was, the janitor at the at the school?

Probably the janitor.

He built me a special desk and the only way I can describe it is it looked kind of like a casket but it was just like the side of it was cut out and I would sit down and turn to the left and put my legs up in front of me and it was straight out in the front so my legs were supported because I had the two long leg braces on at that time and then it had a little top too lay my papers on and it had a back to lean against. I can't, I don't even, I wish I had that desk I just can't imagine what happened to it. Anyway, also another thing I remember about school was they had floors that were that were they had wooden floors they had told them to preserve them and they were just as slick as they could be when they got wet and the ceilings in this old school leaked once in a while and boy I’d come upon a pedal and not realize it sometimes and down I go and I took a lot of tumbles in that school because of the wet spots at the water fountain or at them leaky roof are just anywhere there was any moisture on the floor. I really think I was kind of the teacher's pet. I had a problem with nosebleeds and when I'd have a nosebleed the teachers would come out of every class trying to figure out what to do about Brenda's nosebleed. This was our elementary school. There was eight classes in that building and so all eight teachers would come out leave their classes just to go see what was going on with Brenda's nosebleed. So I guess I was kind of the teacher's pet, the only child in school they had special needs you can imagine. At this school there were three buildings one was the grade school one was the home economics building with the principal's office and the other was the high school building and let's see at recess I couldn't jump rope like the other kids are play chase or anything like that but I had some friends and would sit on the steps of the grade school or on the porch of the grade school and we'd play jacks and I was pretty good at that because since I couldn't do a lot of physical things I could I could do that pretty well. I remember specifically thinking though one time I realized that I can't do all the physical things that all the other kids can do in school but I can be just as smart as any of them and so I made a great effort to make good grades and as it turned out I did graduate from high school at Western Heights high school 2nd in my class.

Did the kids at school treat you any differently from anyone else?

Well yeah they treated me kind of special. They were very nice to me and I always had lots of friends. Just recently or in fact two weekends ago I went to my alumni banquet at Blue Oklahoma and a funny incident happened there was a boy there that I had not seen in 42 years and of course I don't look like I did back then and when he walked up to me I said do you know who I am? I was sitting down and he said well, and so I said here I'll help you and I picked up my crutch and showed it to him and he said Brenda. So I had a kind of a distinguishing feature I guess, but yes I always had lots of friends. I really did, I enjoyed all my schoolmates.

Did you attend college?

Yes I did attend college for about two years at Oklahoma Christian college this was a pretty trying time for me though. I remember when I graduated from high school this summer before college I had surgery on my left leg and then at the same time I was trying to decide which college to go to. Finally a man came out from Oklahoma Christian and he encouraged me to go there he said you know it's a bunch of Christian kids and if you ever need help you'll have it, but the problem is the campus the dorms are downhill from the campus and there are steps and it was lots of walking and I should never have tried it but the Lord made me strong and I somehow was able to do it carrying a satchel full of books and not only that I had to go off to school that with a cast on my leg, a walking, cast and during the summer they also were treating me for lazy eye or amblyopia an I had a Patch on my eye well I told him I'll go to college I can't help it I'll go to college with cast on my leg but I'm not wearing a patch on my so they had me put drops in my good eye so that I could barely see out of it to do the same thing you know to make me use the lazy eye so I went off to college with cast on my leg and couldn't half see and still the Lord took care of me. One incident that did happen though the doctors had told me to be very careful not to ever get the bottom of my cast wet then soft because it would be a problem there. Well one day I got caught out in the rain. The bottom of my casts got wet, I put too much weight on my leg and they had to redo the surgery. The surgery that I had had was my leg was bending back too far and they were afraid as I got older and heavy that I'm notn that leg just wouldn't support me and it might break. I was no longer in a brace on that leg so anyway they what they did they took a wedge of pelvic, I mean wedge of bone out of my pelvis they saw my leg and two below the knee and they put that wedge of bone in there and they were trying to get it to graft in to give a different angle to my legs so that I wouldn't, so my leg would have more strength or more direction I don't know just how that works and anyway then they had to redo it whenever I finally messed it up whenever I was in school. I really at this point in my life wish they had never done that surgery because that leg has poor circulation and it's not going backwards anymore it's going in but that's just part of life. 

Did you have any fears because of your disability?

Yes I was afraid that there would never be a boy that would want to marry a handicapped person like myself and also the doctors had told my parents that they were not sure that I would be able to have children because they didn't know very much about the effects that polio would have in that area at that time.

What did you do to alleviate those fears?

Well one day I just went to my dad and I said daddy do you think that there's ever going to be a boy that would want to marry me whenever I had polio and can't get around like everybody else and he said there is somebody for everybody Brenda just don't worry about it. That's not much of a sentence for him to have said to me but it was very encouraging, and I believed him. I took it to heart but from that day forward I began to pray every day that someday I would find a fine Christian man and that I would be able to have children even if the doctors didn't think I'd be able.

Did God answer your prayers?

Yes, in fact God began answering my prayers during those difficult college years. That's whenever I started dating Bobby Nusbaum and we started dating in December after I started to college and he fell in love with me real quick for some reason and I think it’s because of the Lord. I had dated several other boys and it always kind of amazed me that boys asked me for dates at the college whenever here I was on with the cast on my leg and everything but I dated several boys and then finally Bobby invited me out for a date on in December and we went to see the Sound of Music and then he started picking me up at college every Wednesday night and taking me to the college church and we'd go to church together then he'd come back on Fridays and pick me up and we go home for the weekend and would spend most of the weekend out running around together as much as we could then he'd take me back to school on Monday and then he'd drive to OU, so he just drove back and forth from OU where he was going to college to OC, Oklahoma Christian to be with me and we fell in love and say that you asked me what was your question? 

Had God answer your prayers.

Okay.

What about the kids?

So finally we did get married and we were able to have three beautiful children and now I'm a grandmother and we have a beautiful granddaughter and we have another grandchild on the way and Bobby and I will be celebrating our 38th anniversary next month on May 29th.

Was it more difficult taking care of three children in a household because of your polio?

Well you know I don't really remember it being too much more difficult. I just remembered that I had to do things in a different way. God made me very strong. I had to be just extremely strong in my shoulders and everything to even to have been able to do it what I did in college and he granted me good health all through the years of raising our children. Lot of people used to ask me a question that I thought was kind of funny at first but now I understand it they'd say well how did you ever take care of your children when you couldn't even carry them and you know my husband did go to work every day I did have to take care of my children but I just had figured out. I would go in in the morning. I would pick them up out of their bed and then I would lay them in a little bassinet and change their diaper and take care of them and pull the bassinet wherever I needed to go. Then as they got a little bit older I had a little bed, a little bit a little small crib that had wheels on it I left him out of their big bed and put him in the crib, pull them wherever I wanted them. Then when they got a little older I'd sit him in a little seat inside that little bed then when they got a little bit older I picked them up out of their bed and I’d to do whatever I need to do with them and then I’d put him in their walker and they'd walk off. Then when they got a little bit older, I'd pick him up out of their bed and I'd put him on the floor, and they'd crawl. Then as they got a little older I'd pick him up out of their bed and they'd walk. They did their own walking. So it's just a matter of figuring it out and people tell me that I did a better job than most people at taking care of my household and my children and my husband so I think I was just very very determined and I think the Lord was just always within helping me be strong.

When you had to pick up the babies out of the crib were you standing or sitting?

I had to be sitting. I had a rocking chair and that was kind of hard because the rail only went down so far, so when they were real small I'd really have to reach over the edge and pick him up very carefully. What I do is I'd wrap their blanket around him and I'd hold the blanket in two different places to have him really secured so that I wouldn't drop him. I never dropped one of 'em.

Did you ever have a job out of the home?

Yes, I worked for the, at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences center real close to the area where I was in crippled Children's Hospital for so many years. I worked there for three years until we had our first child and while Bobby finished his degree at OU and got a job at FAA and then I quit working and stayed home with our children.

Do you think your experience with polio has had a negative or positive effect on your life?

Well I feel that it has had mostly a positive effect on my life. Fortunately when I was in the hospital I was a pretty cute little kid when I was little and I don't know if that had a lot to do with or not but I think it does make a difference you know that's a bad thing to say but I think children that are really cute get better positive reactions a lot of times than others and I was pretty cute so they were really nice to me to get care of me and Phyllis Pearson was just like a second mother when I was in the convalescent home. I got lots of attention as I said on the streets of Durant Oklahoma. When I go into town people would see me and give me money. My parents and family were very always very good to me. My brothers and sisters were as good to me as kids can be. My husband and children have always been wonderful. So I really feel like the Lord has blessed me beyond measure. You know one thing that I did not mention here and and I think I might have missed it in the notes here that I have, how much good care that my mother took of me. She would when I'd be out of the hospital she was very diligent to make sure that I had a physical therapy that I needed. She would make those hot tails and wrap them on my legs to lynbrook the muscles so they wouldn't get stiff everything. She’d pick me up on the kitchen table and exercise my legs and Phyllis was telling me she remembered how that mom would have to twist my foot one direction and twisted the other she remembers it really better than I do as far as all the different things that mom did for me, and so both of my parents were extremely caring and there were other children that were, I had a friend in the hospital at one time that her parents said oh she has polio we're not going to make her wear braces 'cause that be uncomfortable and so she never had to wear a back brace. Well when she was an adult her back was so crooked that she had to have a metal bar to straighten her and a very serious surgery but my parents always said we are going to do everything we can that Brenda needs whatever is best for Brenda we're going to do it. So whenever the doctors told me to wear a brace I wore it. Whenever my doctors told me to do something my mom and dad were very diligent to make sure that it happened so that I could have the best care and best chance to to live and do well. I know my parents prayed for me and I know that they prayed that I would find a Christian husband and that that made a great deal of difference. A scripture that I I lean on a lot and and I think that has made a big difference in my life this is my attitude right here in a second Corinthians twelve, ten and Seven it says “that is why for Christ sake I delight in weaknesses and insults in hardships in persecutions in difficulties for when I am weak then I am strong.” And I truly feel that I'm strong stronger spiritually because of the polio experience because I had to lean on the Lord and depend on the Lord all those years and all of those I felt like he just carried me through it all so very well and took such good care of me.

Do you remember when you were a kid and you would fall down? Did mom daddy run and pick you up?

Well no, that's one of the things that when I was in and the crippled Children's Hospital just a little bitty baby but beneath the before I was even two years old whenever I finally had a got into braces and crutches in order to help me out they taught me how to fall and then they taught me how to climb at my crutch to get back up into the standing position so whenever I would fall they didn't have to come pick me up I knew how to get up by myself but I can't do it anymore. Old age has just taken care of that.

Do you want to talk about any of the stories that you remember from like when you were crossing the bridge, when you were going around the end of the building at school. There are lots of stories that you could tell.

Well okay yeah I'll tell the story about the bridge. This was a very scary story for me. One day I don't know how far it was to our bridge from our house but it's quite a distance and it was icy and the driveway had rocks so you can imagine ice on rocks bumpy sliding rock and so I was dreading going to the bus that day because I didn't know I was gonna make it in. Bob had graduated from high school and he didn't he wasn't there to take care of me anymore so anyway this is one bad thing I'm going to tell on my mom she didn't she had on her everyday dress and she didn't want to help me to go out to the bus because she was afraid that somebody would see her in her old clothes so I had to figure out a way of getting there by myself. So I inched my way out to the bridge. Well this was when I was a little bit older and by this time our bridge had one of the slats out of it so when I came to that gap in the bridge I had to put my crutches down and try to hop over that spot on the ice. Well when I did my crutches went one way and my legs went the other and I almost slipped down in between the slats in the bridge. So the bus driver jumps off the bus and comes to help me but that's not the only one that came. My boyfriend Jimmy Levins came and helped pick me up.

So was it worth it?

It was worth it. Okay, the other story, what's the other one? I know my most embarrassing moment, is that what you're talking about?

Yes.

Well.

Only if you want to tell it.

Well because of the polio and because of walking on crutches I had really muscular upper body and then I was sort of narrow in the hips well you know when you're I think I was probably about 12 years old and I was getting to the point that I wanted to be beautiful and what all and so anyway one day my dad made a remark that really made an impression on me but it wasn't a very good one and he didn't mean anything by it but he said Brenda you're you're kind of built like a boxer. You're wide at the shoulders and narrow at the hips and so I thought oh no I want to be the hourglass shaped like the beautiful girls are and so I felt really bad and so I thought well okay I’ll fix this. So we had back then there was such a thing called a cancan. Well modern day children don't know what that is but it's layers of netting. It's...

Kinda like a tutu??

Yeah kinda like a tutu, a slip or something has a waistband and has all these different layers of netting. So when I would wear that then it made me look like the hourglass glass shape because it made my skirt stand out at the bottom and made my hips look wider and everything. Well being a child on the farm when it would tear, it finally it started getting old after a long time and it would start tearing the layers would come loose so I would put him together with a Bobby pin or a safety pin and before long my cancan weighed a whole lot and waistband was losing elasticity. So one day I had to walk from the grade school building went up this was when I was in the eighth grade I guess, all the way past the home economics building around to the high school into the side of the building with the history room was for my history class, but I had made it very far from the grade school building when all of a sudden my cancan started slipping down. Well when you're walking on crutches you can't reach down and pull up your slip so I told my friends Joy Rose and Judy Wilson I said my and cancans are falling down and I said well here let's go behind this bush be behind here at their home economics building and we’ll pull your cancan up. So we went back behind the bush which was right and in front of the principles window which I didn't realize and we pull my cancan up but so I started walking the rest of the way and as I went it started falling down more and more till i got around to the side of the high school building where the principal office was and I had to swallow my pride and go in and ask him for a paper, well ask tell him my dilemma, and so he said well I'll go get a paper bag and I'll leave the room and you can take your cancan off and put it in the sack. So that was the last time I ever wore a cancan and that was my most embarrassing moment.

Actually, at the first window you were in front of that was the superintendent's window right?

Is that what I said?

You said the principal both times.

Yes I meant the Superintendent. First I was in front of the superintendent's window and then I went into the principal's office. That's correct.

Well do you have anything else you'd like to add?

Well I just have been very blessed. I guess one of the highlights in my life. The Lord also blessed me with a home that's built for handicapped people that is very convenient. We built a new home in 1994 and it has all the conveniences for me with no steps and everything and a bar that's lowered to be like a desktop for cooking and I just have a wonderful family. All my brothers and sisters were still very close to each other, the ones of us that are still living and there's seven of us or is it eight that are living. Seven or eight? Seven.

Eight.

And my husband's family is a good family too so the Lord just answered every prayer just much better than I could have ever hoped for.

Has Bobby, your husband, been pretty patient with your handicap throughout the years?

He's been extremely patient. He's never acted like it bothered him at all. He's very supportive and always very complimentary. I'm always saying do I look okay and his response is beautiful as always. I’ve sure got him fooled.

Does he give lessons? Well let me just add to that your house looks like Martha Stewart's house. You put me to shame your house is always perfect and never a thing out of place whereas mine is just lived in so maybe you’ve had to try harder.

Well just think that probably makes people more determined or something. I don't know I mean when you have a weakness then you just have to have an extra little amount of determination, I think because I've seen that in other people that had polio or disabilities you just what I think you have something to prove you know when you've had a normal life things just go on but one of the sad things about polio though that I might mention, a lot of us that had been so determined and gone on and live normal lives are now experiencing polio syndrome which is where a polio comes back in affects us again so far I've been very fortunate because I take lots of vitamins and no medications and I'm not very in any pain from it or anything but I have slowed down a lot but haven't we all as we get older.

Yeah.

So ,I don't know if it's just age or the polio syndrome.

Okay, well thank you for coming down today to record your story.

Well I hope I didn't forget something important that's my main fear.

Oh there is so much you could tell, you just have to do what you can do in an hour.