Comfort

by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

  And that’s exactly what we done. First thing Saturday morning we all piled in Papaw’s car and he took us to Warm Springs. It was a wonderful fall day, almost as warm as summer. We rolled down the car windows. The smell of the pine trees was so strong it reminded me of Hickory’s polio hospital.

  You would think a body wouldn’t get homesick for a hospital, but all of a sudden I was. It came back to me how Imogene would be in her bed beside mine. And the sun coming through the window screen would make lacy pineneedle shadows on her white sheets.

  She’d be telling me some silly story or maybe even singing one of those Negro spirituals. Whenever Imogene sang I’d just lay there and listen. Seemed like the songs knew what I was feeling. Or maybe it was Imogene who understood and that’s how she picked the songs.

  I stared out the car window and thought about Peggy Sue and how we used to understand each other like twin sisters. But that was before my life got cut in two with polio making an ugly line down the middle.

  Sometimes it felt like I was on the garden side of Daddy’s ditch and Peggy Sue was still in Wisteria Mansion, under those purple blossoms where nothing bad ever happened. We’d look at each other and try to talk across the ditch, but neither one of us could step over it.

  The closer we got to Warm Springs, the more I missed Imogene. And President Roosevelt too. I sure wished he was going to be there!

  When we arrived, Papaw took us right into the grounds of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. It seemed like it was open to just anyone. He drove real slow by a huge white building with tall columns and lots of windows. A girl in a wheelchair was going toward the building, and when she got to it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The door opened for her and she hadn’t even done a thing!

  “Well, if that don’t beat all,” said Daddy.

  I thought how I had to struggle to get doors open while I was propped on my crutches. Was every door in this place so easy to get through? What would it be like to live in a place designed especially for crippled people?

  While we sat there and stared, the door opened again and a man came through in a wheelchair. Not a big wooden one like all the ones I’d ever seen, but a shiny metal one. He must’ve thought we looked a little lost because he wheeled his chair over to the car.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “How may I help you?”

  Papaw told him we just wanted a glimpse of Warm Springs. “We saw a picture in the paper,” he said. “And it made us want to visit Franklin Roosevelt’s favorite place.”

  Mr. Shoes poked his head out the window, and the minute the man saw him he got a big grin on his face. He let Mr. Shoes sniff his hand. “You sure do bring up some good memories,” he said. “The president had a dog like this, you know.”

  Then Papaw told him about me having polio. And right then and there, the man invited us to park the car and join him for a tour! None of us ever expected that.

  He waited for us to get out and then he introduced himself. “Fred Botts,” he said, shaking hands with every single one of us. “I’m the registrar here at the foundation.”

  Mr. Botts turned his chair toward the building with the tall pillars. “This building is called Georgia Hall.” He looked at Ida and Ellie and asked, “Which one of you wants to open the magic door?”

  Of course they both wanted to. So he said, “Whoever steps first in front of the all-seeing eye.” He pointed to the door, and Ida and Ellie about knocked each other down to get there first. Just like that, the door opened and Mr. Botts took us inside. The lobby had tall windows that let in lots of light. It was a grand entryway that stretched way out from side to side but wasn’t very deep. There was sofas and chairs and potted plants and pictures in fancy frames hanging on the walls.

  Mr. Botts led us to a big dining room off to the right. He showed us just where the president would’ve sat if he’d been there for Thanksgiving dinner. “We always looked forward to our Thanksgiving meal with the president,” he said. “This year we left an empty space at the table to honor him.”

  I asked him what was it like to actually talk to President Roosevelt.

  “Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like meeting your next-door neighbor. That’s what he called us. ‘Hi ya, neighbor,’ he would say when he drove up to people’s houses or saw folks in town. He loved to talk about farming and trees and horses and fishing.”

  After we toured Georgia Hall, Mr. Botts wanted to show us the rest of Warm Springs. So he talked to a man in a bow tie at the desk in the lobby of Georgia Hall. “Ed, could you call for the trailer?”

  The man picked up the telephone right away.

  “We’ll just wait here for a few minutes. Someone will come get us,” said Mr. Botts.

  And sure enough, before long a bus pulled up out front. The driver opened some doors in the back and pulled out a ramp. With his help, Mr. Botts rolled his wheelchair right into the back of that bus. And we followed.

  We sat on seats that were lined up against the walls facing each other like sofas in a living room. While we rode, Mr. Botts showed how the bus had places to store crutches and even room for people on stretchers to ride along.

  We stopped next to a big building with huge glass windows. “This is our new pool that we use for therapy,” said Mr. Botts. “We won’t go inside, though, because I want to show you the original pools.”

  The bus took us to some other swimming pools and we got out and walked around. A man was crawling to the pool. “See that gentleman?” asked Mr. Botts. “Before he was president, when he had more time to spend here, that could have been Franklin Roosevelt. At Warm Springs he was a polio like everyone else. If he needed to get somewhere and crawling was the easiest way, then that’s what he’d do.”

  That really surprised me. In every picture I’d seen of the president he was standing or sitting at a table. I just couldn’t imagine him on his hands and knees.

  Mr. Botts told us to put our hands into the water. “Feel how warm it is? Almost ninety degrees.”

  I could see why the place was called Warm Springs—on account of the water, of course. But everything about this place seemed warm. There was a breeze, but even though it was late November it wasn’t the kind of wind to make you shiver.

  On top of that, everybody was real friendly. A couple of patients came up to me and asked when I had polio and if I was coming there to stay. Mr. Botts said, “Oh, we’re working on that.” He looked at me. “You really should come.”

  All the way back to Papaw and Mamaw’s house I kept hearing him say that line. You really should come. Even the tires on Papaw’s cars were singing those words. You really should come. You really should come…

  13

  Staying in Warm Springs

  November–December 1945

  I guess you could say I didn’t actually leave Warm Springs.

  Something about that place felt so much like home, and driving away was making a big homesickness inside of me. Even after we got back to North Carolina the feeling of belonging in Georgia stayed with me.

  Mr. Botts had given me some papers with information about Warm Springs and even a registration form. In case I decided to come back. “Talk it over with your doctor,” he’d said. My daddy promised that we would.

  Back when I was in the polio hospital, a Warm Springs specialist named Dr. Bennett used to come and check on us. He had told me that with the help of the March of Dimes and people who make donations, anybody can go to Warm Springs.

  But my daddy was just home from the war when I got out of the hospital. The thought of being away from him again was more than I could take. So I decided I didn’t want to go just then.

  Of course that was before we started noticing changes in Daddy. And now that things had got bad with him I was sure I couldn’t go. I often heard him hollering in the middle of the night. And then I’d hear Momma’s voice—almost like she was soothing a squalling baby.

  All this time I had thought that if he just got a job and went to work every day, somehow that was
going to fix things between him and Momma. But evidently there was something wrong with him that a job couldn’t fix. He still complained about headaches, and we never could predict how he’d act when he got up in the morning or what mood he’d be in when he come home from work.

  When Daddy emptied that Bromo-Seltzer bottle, I claimed it for my own. I set it on my nightstand and thought back to my days in the hospital and my friendship with Imogene.

  One day, the first week in December, Daddy got up in a specially foul mood. When I said good morning, he growled at me like I’d woke him out of a deep sleep. Then Momma didn’t refill his coffee fast enough to suit him and he told Ida to do it.

  He knew good and well Momma didn’t let the twins take hot things off the stove. So I tried to get it instead. There was only a few steps from the stove to the table, so I thought I could hand a cup of coffee over to Daddy without having a disaster. But I got off balance and dropped the cup.

  It broke. Hot coffee splashed on Daddy’s pant leg. He jumped up so fast his chair went clattering to the floor. “Ann Fay, who asked for your interference?”

  “I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”

  Daddy acted like he didn’t hear me, but I knew he did. He left without his last cup of coffee. And he forgot his lunchbox, too.

  Momma brought the dustpan and started picking up the pieces. I thought she would be annoyed with me. “Do you know what I think?” she asked. “You’re trying too hard to fix this family. I think you should go to Warm Springs the first chance you get. There isn’t a thing you can do about your daddy anyway. And if you can learn to walk again, we’ll all be better off.”

  I thought about that all the way to school. About how I kept trying to fix things when I needed to be fixed. I thought maybe I should go. But could I really leave my family?

  On that very same morning, before I went to my class, I stopped off at the water fountain. But before I could prop myself on my crutch to get a drink, Rob Walker jumped in front of me. He slurped the water real loud and said, “There ought to be a law against people with polio using public water fountains.” He made a big show of brushing polio germs off his arm. Then he turned around and marched down the hall.

  I tell you what’s the truth. I felt like chasing him down and tripping him with my crutch. I wanted to see Rob fall flat on his face. But of course I couldn’t run. So I just watched him go until someone behind me said, “Hurry up and get a drink, why don’t you!”

  That’s when I made up my mind. Daddy had told me polio can make you stronger. And I decided to be strong enough to leave home. To get out of that school filled with normal people and away from my house where we couldn’t remember what normal felt like.

  Somehow or other I would go to Warm Springs.

  So one night that week when Daddy was in a good mood I told him I wanted to go. I was half afraid he’d get ill-tempered when I mentioned it. But instead he pulled a piece of wood out of his pocket and started whittling. “I wondered how long it would take you to make up your mind.”

  “You mean it’s okay with you?”

  Daddy give me a hurt look. “Why wouldn’t I want you to walk again?”

  The next time we went to the polio clinic he handed the papers to the doctor. “What do you think?” he asked.

  Dr. Gaul glanced over the pamphlets, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t change how he felt about the matter. He just looked at me and said, “It’s not so important what I think. What matters is how Ann Fay feels about it. If she wants to be at Warm Springs, then the staff there will help her make big strides. If she isn’t ready yet, there’s no point in wasting her time or someone else’s money.”

  Right off I started defending myself. Trying to explain why I didn’t want to go when I first came home from the hospital. “Back in June,” I said, “my daddy was just home from the war. And I hadn’t seen my sisters or my momma in so long that—”

  Dr. Gaul put his hand on my shoulder. “I understand all that,” he said. “But now that it’s December, how do you feel?”

  “I want to go.”

  “Why?”

  I thought of everything I’d seen at Warm Springs. The beautiful white buildings with doors that opened up for crippled people. The warm water where Mr. Botts said I could improve my muscles. The sight of people moving all over in wheelchairs and on crutches.

  But I didn’t say any of that. What I said was, “People can crawl on their hands and knees at Warm Springs and nobody thinks a thing about it.” Then I started to cry.

  For some reason that was enough for Dr. Gaul. “Warm Springs will do you good,” he said. “You’ve been working hard on your exercises, and your muscles are getting stronger. But there’s more that can be done.” Then he gave me a warning. “It won’t be easy, Ann Fay. When you get to Warm Springs, you’ll have to endure many examinations and they’ll put you on a rigorous therapy program.”

  My daddy spoke up. “This girl can work hard as any teenager in North Carolina or Georgia, either one.”

  Dr. Gaul nodded. “I know that’s true. We’ll send all your medical records to Warm Springs with your application. But don’t expect to be admitted before Christmas. These things take time.”

  Before Christmas? As much as I wanted to be at Warm Springs, I didn’t want to go yet. I’d been in the polio hospital the December before and I didn’t want to be away from home for another holiday.

  But it felt like Christmas had come early just to hear my doctor say he’d help me get to Warm Springs.

  14

  Christmas

  December 1945

  In the middle of December I got a letter from Mr. Fred Botts saying he had a space for me starting in late January.

  I’d been holding my breath waiting for this. But when it happened I could hardly breathe for the fear that come over me. I’d lay awake at night feeling like I had to get to Warm Springs. But then I’d think, No. I can’t leave home.

  Or I’d be watching Momma and Daddy doing some ordinary, everyday thing, like her sweeping the floor while he held the dustpan for her. And I’d get this fear that I’d never see that again. That if I didn’t stay and hold this family together it might fall to pieces.

  Momma was right—I couldn’t change anything. But at least if I stayed home, I would know what was going on—even if it was bad, like the time he threw a drinking glass at the screen door when Ellie let it slam! Or the way he went to bed before the twins every night and got up looking like he hadn’t slept a wink in spite of it. Seeing my daddy come apart like that was hard. But I was afraid that not seeing him would be even worse. What if he quit going to his job and Momma didn’t write and tell me about it?

  When it was definite that I was going to Warm Springs, Momma started sewing two new dresses for me. Daddy took care of all the arrangements. Phone calls, doctor visits, and talking to my teacher.

  “I’m sure going to miss you,” said Mrs. Barkley. And the next day she handed me a little blue book with blank pages. “It’s a diary,” she said. “Why don’t you record your experiences while you’re away?”

  When Ruth Whitener found out I was going, she sent Jean back to the house for a canning jar. “This is a community responsibility,” she said. “Our customers will want to help.” The way she said “our customers” made me feel almost like I was her business partner.

  She pulled a fountain pen out of her metal money box and made a small sign on a piece of paper.

  Donations for Our Polio Girl

  Ann Fay Honeycutt

  (so she can learn to walk at Warm Springs, Georgia)

  Jean taped the sign on the jar and stayed in the store all morning. “We’re going to fill this and then we’ll start over again,” she said. She wasn’t a bit shy. The minute anyone walked through the door, she’d come right out and ask for money. “How about a dollar for Ann Fay going to Georgia?” Or, “Hey, mister. You gotta dime to spare?”

  And I do declare, just about every customer come up with something. Mrs
. Whitener had a big pot of pinto beans on the stove. She started dishing them up for anybody who put money in the jar. “A bowl of beans for a donation,” she’d say. “No amount is too small. And don’t forget to tell your neighbors.”

  Well, that store got so busy Mrs. Whitener run out of beans the first day. “I see I’m going to have to break out my biggest pot,” she said. She looked mighty pleased with herself.

  The sight of that jar filling with coins and even dollar bills brung tears to my eyes. But the thing that touched my heart the most was Otis Hickey. He come in every morning at eleven o’clock for his dill pickle. But as soon as Jean told him about the collection he said, “Never mind the pickle, then.” He put his two cents in the donation jar. It was just a mite, but I figured he didn’t have much. So it felt like a whole lot to me.

  I had a soft spot for Otis on account of most people wouldn’t give him the time of day. Seemed like he was always bringing up the war. And more often than not, one of the other veterans in there would tell him to dry up.

  So he never stayed for long. Just long enough to tell us his mother’s arthritis was good on some days, bad on others. And maybe he’d try to start up a conversation. If he didn’t get any satisfaction he’d just turn around and leave again. It got to where I wanted to run after him. If only I could run! If I could, I would’ve caught him by the arm and said, “Talk to me, Otis Hickey. I want to hear about the war. What was it like? What happened over there to change my daddy like it done?”

  Maybe that was a lie. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Maybe I wasn’t as brave as I thought I was. Because I saw Daddy every day of the week and I never did ask him those questions. As a matter of fact I was fixing to run off to Georgia like nothing had happened to him at all.

  One Sunday at church I was talking to Peggy Sue about that. “Your daddy’s problems are not your fault,” she said.