C.E. Reeve, M.D., C.M., F.R.C.P. (C) Ted's bibliography on transplantation and immunology
Charles's project Artists as Writers index
Gloria Reeve Hatfield on LinkedIn
Joe Rosenblatt, Marci Katz, Bill Friesen The Eastside Group artists
Judy Williams artist, writer, coastal activist
John Oliver, composer & virtuoso guitarist
Kim Goldberg, Pig Squash Press
Sheila Norgate, Keep Calm & Carry On Gallery
Marion VanWart Croft
Marion and I are first cousins once removed, but we didn’t meet until we were well into middle age and living three thousand miles apart. She grew up in Toronto and I in Montreal, not a great distance but great enough for working class families with fixed vacation schedules and no cars.
My adults talked about little Marion, learning to walk – and then learning to walk all over again, her struggle and pain as she fought the terrible scourge that was polio.
In Toronto the Hospital for Sick Children responded to the epidemic early by making iron lungs, splints and braces and other contraptions frightening to behold but life-enabling for thousands of children. For Marion this hospital became a place where fear and trust and pain and healing and tears and laughter bolstered her innate courage.
The beach in the South Shore suburb where I lived was not really a "beach", but a concrete platform accessed by a few stairs and a short tunnel in the seawall. During the "polio season" the parks authorities sloshed it with Dettol before our bare feet touched down for the morning lessons.
While I was learning to swim off the St.Lawrence River’s cement shore, my toddler cousin Marion was playing in an old rowboat on the edge of Lake Ontario. It was there that Polio struck.
This book tells what happened next. It seems significant that 50 years later she travelled cross-country to visit me on Gabriola, decades before I made it to Toronto.
Me & the tree: Living with polio was just the beginning by Marion Croft (Author)
This autobiographical account of one woman's journey living with polio, intertwines heartwarming accounts of the struggles, achievements and triumphs. http://www.vitalaccess.ca
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