It was just before my mother’s 14th birthday when her little sister got sick.
My mother, Shirley Stroup Whiteman, remembers that time so long ago, when a different virus spread through the world like wildfire.
“She felt sick and was kind of pasty looking,” my mother explained of her sister, Karen, who was 4.
“She got upset real easy. She was really tired and finally she got to a place where she decided she was going to go to bed. She tried to go upstairs, but she just couldn’t.
“My mother started crying. She knew.”
It was infantile paralysis — polio. Karen’s body “would not stay upright for her to accomplish anything for herself.”
The Aug. 28, 1944, issue of The Era — back before the days of HIPPA — read, “The 13th case of infantile paralysis in McKean County was reported yesterday with admittance to the Bradford Hospital of Karen Stroup, 4, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Stroup of Westline.”
An outbreak of the polio virus was first reported in McKean County on Aug. 4, 1944. Within 11 days, there were seven cases. And then 13.
Karen was hospitalized in Erie, where she stayed for months.
“They had to put her in isolation in Children’s Hospital,” my mother recounted.
The Stroup family at home — Dulcie, 17; Shirley, 14; Danny, 11; Marvin, 10; Gail, 7; John, 2; and David, born just two months earlier — were quarantined to their property. The eldest two children, Wade and Thursie, were adults and lived outside of the home. Steve and Brian, the youngest two, weren’t born yet.
“Mother said we’ve got to start and scrub the house from top to bottom,” my mother Shirley recounted. “It was a hard job. The house sure got a good cleaning. My mother saw to that,” she added with a laugh.
My grandmother, Vesta Queen Stroup — commonly known as “Queenie” — was a no-nonsense woman. Every time I think of her, the phrase “she brooked no foolishness” comes to mind.
My mother continued: “We had to stay in the house and in our property until the quarantine went off the house — I think it was about three weeks. I’m not sure how long.”
It was a difficult time, my mother said. The older children did a lot of the manual labor, as my grandfather, Dan Stroup, was the only one permitted to leave the property — and only with a pass. “He went and got what we needed. An old couple lived across from us. She kept us supplied with eggs so Mother had something to bake with.”
The family had two work horses that Dan Stroup used to pull trees out of the woods to take to the factory to be made into charcoal.
“As we worked, we would look at one another … and get on with the work,” my mother said. “We were all scared, thinking we were going to get it.”
Polio mainly effects children under the age of 5, but is highly contagious.
And there weren’t enough bedrooms in the Stroup home for each child to have his own.
“We had to share because there were 4 bedrooms,” my mother said. Yet none of the other children contracted the virus.
Karen stayed at the hospital by herself, with family permitted to visit on Sundays once she was out of isolation — and then it was only the older children who were permitted to see her.
“They didn’t need any little ones in there,” my mother explained.
Karen got the mumps while she was hospitalized — “it was no picnic,” my mother explained.
When Karen came home, she had lasting effects from the disease, weakness in one arm and leg. Karen went on to live a happy life, marrying Albert Owoc and having seven children. She had been married for 37 years when she passed away in 1998, having suffered from post-polio syndrome as an adult.
Now, at the age of 29 (see Mom, I remembered) and approaching the 61st anniversary of her 29th birthday, my mother is watching from home as the coronavirus spreads throughout the world.
“What do you think of these people complaining about having to stay home?” I asked.
Whip-quick, and in that brooks-no-foolishness tone of her own, my mother responded, “They should just mind their own business and stay clean. Eat a well balanced diet.”
Yes, Mother.
Her tone gentling, she asked how my daughter is doing. It’s been weeks since we’ve been able to visit. “I bet my little lovey is going stir-crazy.” She is, but she’s OK.
But for the rest of you, myself included, chin up and handle your business.
In 1944, when public gatherings were curtailed and families were not permitted to leave their homes at all, they survived. Without the internet, Netflix, fast food or Walmart.
This, too, shall pass.
(Marcie Schellhammer is the Era’s assistant managing editor. She can be reached at marcie@bradfordera.com.)
