Betsy said, “Hey, Ann Fay, where you going?”
I jerked my head around to see if Nurse Amanda heard, and I seen then that she opened her eyes for a second. But I don’t think they was open long enough to focus on anything because she went right back to sleep.
“Shhh!” I said to Betsy. “Don’t wake the nurse. It’s a surprise.” And just like that, I went out the door.
I didn’t have no experience riding that wheelchair over the wet boards on the ramp outside. At first I thought I might jolt myself right out of the chair. But once that chair started rolling down that ramp, it just kept going. Just when I thought I was going to go flying, it landed with a jolt and a crunch on the dirt at the end of the ramp.
Suddenly those wheels didn’t want to go nowhere. I grabbed them with my hands and pushed with all my might. But my muscles was weak, especially the ones in my left arm.
The rain was coming down hard now, and I knew I couldn’t just sit there and get soaking wet for no reason at all. So I started talking to those muscles. “Get your lazy bones moving,” I told them.
I put my whole mind to moving those wheels just the tiniest bit, and I felt them turn. I yelled at my muscles some more. “Get a move on it. Giddy up!” The wheels moved some more, and I could see I was getting off the soft muddy area and onto the solid ground of the hospital driveway. I closed my eyes and pushed on those wheels with everything I had in me. I imagined a river and me trying to swim across it.
And next thing I knew, I was moving along and the chair was rolling almost easy. I headed toward the building Imogene was in. At first I didn’t see no sign of her. But then I heard her laugh and seen her dark shape come around the side of the building.
She done it! Somehow she had got out. We headed toward each other, our wheelchairs moving like two boats on a dark river. We was practically swimming with all that rain coming down on us.
When we got close we reached out and grabbed ahold of each other’s arms and laughed. Imogene threw back her head and laughed a big belly laugh and I did too. We opened our mouths and let the rain fall inside.
In the light coming out of the building beside us, I seen the rain collecting in little drops on Imogene’s hair. It seemed like her hair wasn’t even getting wet and mine was all soaked. The water was running off me like a river. Imogene laughed. “I could wring you out like a dishrag,” she said.
By then my teeth was chattering. “I c-could use you to m-mop the floor,” I said.
“The dishrag and the mop,” said Imogene. “That us.” She laughed again. “And I got a feeling, somebody is gonna mop the floor with us when they finds us here.”
“Well,” I said, “they won’t need no bucket of water, will they?” I lifted my hands and Imogene’s too. We danced a little hand dance back and forth in the air and threw back our heads and squealed. I felt the rain run down my face and drip off my chin.
Then I heard Nurse Amanda hollering, and I knew she had caught us already.
24
The “Miracle of Hickory”
January–February 1945
Nurse Amanda stuck me and Imogene in one of them clovershaped metal tubs they put us in for therapy. I was chilled to the core, and the warm water felt twice as good as it ever done when I was in it for exercises.
“If you catch your death of cold, don’t blame it on anyone but yourselves,” Nurse Amanda grumbled. “And see if I don’t start watching you girls like a hawk over a chicken yard.”
She always acted like she didn’t understand why me and Imogene wanted to be friends, but I had a feeling that she was secretly proud of us.
“If you can put your mind to riding wheelchairs around in the rain,” she said, “then I know you can learn to walk again. I expect you to be out of this place before they close it down and move you off to Charlotte.”
“What!” I cried. “Who’s moving to Charlotte?”
Amanda forced her lips into a pretend hard line and said, “I thought you read the newspapers, Ann Fay. They’re talking about closing this hospital down.”
“I been reading those articles for months,” I said. “And they ain’t shut it down yet. It’s just rumors.”
“Don’t be so sure. The epidemic is officially over and most patients have gone home. I suppose the politicians want to save money. So they’re talking about taking the rest of you to Charlotte Memorial. You girls had better shape up because they won’t put up with your nonsense over there.”
“Charlotte is too far away,” I said. “My mother won’t be able to come visit. Why can’t they send us to Hickory Memorial?”
“Hickory Memorial doesn’t have a polio ward. Charlotte is better equipped to take polio patients.”
“I’m not going,” I said. “I’m fixing to get out of here.” “Me too,” said Imogene. “I’m not going to another hospital for true.”
I laughed just thinking how much we sounded like Ida and Ellie—me whining like Ida, and Imogene whining the same little whine I whined first.
Sometimes I did feel like the two of us was almost twin sisters.
Nurse Amanda said, “Well then, I’ll tell your physios to work you extra hard so you can get out of here before they move you to the big city.”
And I reckon she did, because when Miss Ruth come for my therapy session on Monday, she had a wicked gleam in her eye. “So,” she said, “I hear you’re getting out soon. That means we’ve got work to do.” She began working the muscles in my legs and telling me to talk to them.
I was tired of talking to my muscles. But I could see that it worked, so I did it anyway. For weeks I fussed at them. I told them what Daddy always told me. “The first step is the hardest!” I told them Daddy was coming home from the war and I had to be out of the hospital when he did. Which I didn’t know if it was true, but I didn’t mind lying to my muscles. I told them I wasn’t about to go to that Charlotte hospital.
And I told them the sooner they started working right, the sooner they could go to Warm Springs—and see the president. I still didn’t hardly believe it myself, so just in case my muscles wasn’t convinced, I told them Dr. Bennett said so.
I begged the doctors to order me a pair of braces. Especially Dr. Hahn, who was in charge of the hospital. When it come to polio patients, his heart was big as the town of Hickory. I reckon he seen how hard I was working, because before long I had me that pair of braces.
By February I had some movement in my right leg. Miss Ruth had tears in her eyes when she seen me move it. Me and her had got real attached to each other.
“Keep working,” she said. “And don’t be in such a hurry to go home. You need the help of a therapist to get as much movement back as you can.” I knew it was her way of telling me I’d probably have to go to Charlotte whether I liked it or not.
But she said if they moved us to Charlotte, she wouldn’t be going along. “I’m going into the service,” she said. “It’s time for me to help the war effort.”
By the middle of February, talk about shutting down the emergency hospital was serious. The patients didn’t want to go. The nurses and physios was sad too. If the hospital shut down, some of them was heading back to where they come from—Florida, California, Massachusetts, and who knows where else.
After all we been through together, we felt like we was one big family. And now we might have to break up.
Sure enough—Nurse Amanda was right. Next thing I knew, the papers announced that the patients at the Hickory Polio Center was definitely moving to Charlotte.
The newspaper had lots of articles about our hospital. Everybody was bragging on what a good job the nurses done. And there was an article about someone who was in New York City and seen a movie about our hospital. He said they showed the Miracle of Hickory movie right out on the street where thousands of people could see it when they walked by.
I knew some movie people from Hollywood had come and took pictures of the hospital. And they even brought it back to Hickory so we could see it. But I could
n’t imagine a movie screen right out on the street.
What I couldn’t figure out was—if our hospital was so wonderful and famous, why did they want to shut it down?
25
Charlotte Memorial
March–April 1945
When they moved us to Charlotte, there was more dignitaries making speeches and getting their pictures taken than you could shake a stick at. And Momma was there too. She helped me pack up my belongings. We hung on to each other and I promised I would work hard and get out of that Charlotte hospital quick as I could.
I was one of the first people out of the building. They moved the ones in wheelchairs first. I begged Nurse Amanda to put me in a car with Imogene.
“Young lady,” she said, “what you’re asking for—it just isn’t natural.”
The hospital grounds was covered with police, firemen, and all sorts of bigwigs. Not to mention a line of black cars stretched out past the main highway. I kept trying to see Imogene through the crowd, but there was too much commotion. And I figured the coloreds would be the last ones out.
When it was time to go, Momma give me one last squeeze and Nurse Amanda pushed my chair to the door of a shiny black car. She told the volunteers to put me in the back seat. “No,” I said. “I’m waiting on Imogene. Where is she?”
But Amanda just shook her head and grumbled something about white people sticking with their own kind. And the next thing I knew, a fireman was lifting me into the car.
I about jumped out of my skin when I heard a voice beside me. “It’s about time you gets yourself in this car.”
“Imogene!” I screamed. “You’re done already here!” I grabbed her hand, and we laughed so hard I forgot to say thank you to the fireman. Then my door got shut and it was just the two of us there in the back seat. “How did you get here?” I asked. And then I seen a white face up behind Imogene’s black one. It was Nurse Amanda peeking in the car window. I thought her cheeks was going to split wide open from that smile on her face. But I seen tears in her eyes too.
“Nurse Amanda say this her goodbye present to me and you,” Imogene explained.
Nurse Amanda waved and disappeared. She had more patients to load into cars.
The driver was a gentleman who introduced himself as Mr. Barger. His wife must’ve been out talking to some friends. She got into the car just when it was time for him to move forward so another car could load up. Mrs. Barger’s mouth fell open when she seen Imogene in her car. Her husband said, “It’s all right, dear. She’s here by special arrangement.”
“Oh,” said the woman, and that was the end of that.
At first we moved real slow out of the hospital grounds. When I seen all the nurses and Miss Ruth waving out the hospital windows, the tears started running. I felt like I was leaving my home and family. And Momma was gonna be so far away and probably couldn’t visit again.
They said the line of cars taking us to Charlotte was a mile long. Every little town we went through, the cars all blew their horns. Ambulances and police cars turned on their sirens so the people of the towns would see us coming.
Me and Imogene held hands and talked about the Charlotte hospital. “Probably it’s fancy,” I said. “But I’d rather be back in that tent they had us in at first.”
“A tent is fine by me if you in it,” said Imogene.
“You know they’re gonna split us like a piece of firewood,” I said.
And I was right, too. When we got to Charlotte, some orderlies brought wheelchairs. One orderly stopped dead in his tracks when he seen Imogene.
“Whoa!” he said. “Something’s not right.” He looked at Imogene. “Missy, you’re in the wrong place for sure.”
Him and the driver had a conversation about how they was going to get her to the colored ward. Finally the driver said he would push her there in one of the wheelchairs and his wife could drive the car when the line got to moving again.
I give Imogene a big hug.
“Write to me, dishrag,” said Imogene.
“Yes, mophead,” I said. “But who’s going to deliver our letters?”
“We’ll find someone,” said Imogene.
Then the orderly was helping me out of the car, and the driver was helping Imogene into her chair on the other side. The last I seen of her was through the two back doors of that car. I had a feeling like I would never see Imogene Wilfong again.
The Charlotte hospital was good and bad. The good part was they had lots of fun things to do. A circus come to perform just for us polio patients. And Danny Moury’s daddy come and showed us some moving pictures he took with his little movie camera of the “Miracle of Hickory” hospital. It didn’t have a real movie star talking on it like the one the Hollywood people made. In fact, it didn’t have no talking at all. But I liked it on account of I had got to know Danny’s momma and daddy on visiting days. Danny was a little boy who come to the emergency hospital about the same time I did.
The hospital wasn’t fancy like I expected. Well, I reckon parts of it might have been. But not the polio ward. It was built for the epidemic, like the Hickory hospital, but it wasn’t as good as ours by a long shot.
There was only one bathroom for the whole ward full of us girls. Which meant it was busy all the time. The nurses would take the bedpans from the girls and line them up outside the bathroom door, waiting for the orderlies to come and empty them and spray them out. So it smelled pretty awful sometimes, especially on hot days. And it was starting to get hot already.
But the worst part about being in Charlotte was how lonely I felt. Momma wrote Daddy about me moving, so after a while I started getting some letters from him at the Charlotte hospital. I had wrote to him about maybe going to Warm Springs. At first I thought he might not believe me. But he wrote me right back and I knew that just like he always said, Daddy believed I could do whatever I put my mind to.
Dear Ann Fay,
If anybody deserves to see the president it’s you for sure. If he knew all you have done to take care of your family he would give you a medal. Keep working hard and you will make it to Warm Springs. It does my heart good to hear about the progress you’re making.
We are making progress here too. I hope and pray it won’t be much longer.
All my love,
Daddy
My daddy saying it, helped me to believe it. But first, I just wanted to go home for a while.
It was spring now and I was thinking how a year ago I was planting my daddy’s garden. I felt bad because my momma was taking care of the girls and making the garden too. I wanted to help her. I missed the smell of the crumbly red dirt and the feel of it damp between my toes.
One night I dreamed I was in the garden. Just when I yanked the pull start on the tiller, Junior Bledsoe come and took the tiller away from me. He pointed to my legs, and I seen that they was all shriveled up to two thin sticks that wouldn’t even bend.
“Ann Fay Honeycutt,” he said. “You couldn’t run a tiller when you had two good legs. How do you expect to do it with them sticks?” He made me so mad I started kicking my legs and throwing a temper tantrum.
And then I woke up and I really was kicking my legs and I could feel that my left knee—my weak one—had even moved a little.
That’s when I knew I would be walking soon.
When they brought my breakfast, I said I didn’t want to eat. I just wanted to see my physio. But of course I had to wait till it suited her.
While I was waiting, I got in my wheelchair and went to the bathroom. I held my breath going past all them bedpans lined up in the hall.
I was just about finished doing my business when the door opened and a colored orderly walked in with a bedpan. I was so shocked I just about fell in that toilet. And I was so embarrassed I wished he would just flush me right down.
But I think he was more embarrassed than me, even. He backed out of there with his eyes closed and said, “Excuse me, miss. Excuse me for true. I didn’t know you was in here.”
When he shut that door, I prayed he wouldn’t never have to come back on my ward again, because I didn’t think I could look him in the eye. But I knew he would. He was there every day whistling one of them Negro songs Imogene sometimes like to sing.
I finished up and got back in my chair and opened the door. I kept my eyes on the floor all the way back to the ward, but I had a feeling he was hiding from me too, because I didn’t see no man’s shoes along the way. And I for sure didn’t hear no whistling.
I sat in the wheelchair by my bed and waited for my physio.
In Charlotte, my physio was Miss Jane. She had the same pretty brown eyes as Miss Ruth, but they didn’t have the same sparkle and she wasn’t as talkative as Miss Ruth. Still, I thought she would be excited to see me bending my knee.
She seen I was determined and started working real hard with me. I didn’t tell her I was going to Warm Springs for more therapy, and I for sure didn’t mention seeing the president—she’d think I was imagining things. Sometimes I thought so myself, but I never stopped thinking about it. I started improving fast. My left knee was still stiff, but I knew I could make it bend more if I just kept talking to it.
I asked Miss Jane did she know a patient named Imogene Wilfong who come from Hickory.
“No,” she said. “We don’t have any patients by that name.” “She’s in the colored ward.”
Miss Jane didn’t say nothing at first. Then she said, “I don’t work in the colored ward. The coloreds are in tents outside the hospital.”
That made me mad. “Tents?” I said. “Tents is what they had in Hickory at the worst part of the epidemic. Tents is supposed to be for temporary. And y’all went and put the coloreds in a tent? How do they stay warm on cold nights?”
“Well, these tents are for temporary,” said Miss Jane. “We’re in the same epidemic Hickory had. And the weather is getting warmer, so don’t worry your pretty head over a few coloreds.”
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