5/4/50 - Warm Springs GA BY-WAYS - 5/4/50 - Warm Springs GA

Did your baby try to imitate a monkey and climb out of his crib the other day? Don't be cross about it. Just be thankful for his sturdy limbs and adventurous spirit. Do your children romp and play and storm the fort 'til they drive you nearly crazy? Just sit down and look at them from a new angle. Thank the good Lord for His perfect creation and that superabundance of life that He has given them. Down in Warm Springs, Ga., lies a four-year-old boy whose luminous deep-blue eyes reach your very soul. He cannot move his arms or legs, and he must spend every fourth night in an iron lung. In another ward is a ten-year-old girl from Holland. Johanna whose once-distorted legs bear the marks of many operations to straighten them. She is now encased in braces from the hips down, but in another six weeks she will "try her wings." Upstairs is a lovely bride of less than a year, who, five months ago was stricken so that all she could move was her eye-lids. Now she can talk a little and move her fingers. Her handsome, devoted husband is very hopeful that the magic waters of Warm Springs will bring her around all right.

These are just three of the hundreds of cases of polio under treatment at the Warm Springs Foundation. Never again will I watch healthy, dancing children at play without a special appreciation of their freedom. Never can I forget the helpless little children at Warm Springs, some of them unable to move at all. On the happier side let me testify to the fact that nowhere on earth has a polio victim such a chance for recovery - and contentment - during treatment. The children of Warm Springs are happy children. An atmosphere of kindness and good cheer pervades that place. And what a lovely spot it is! My last Sunday in Georgia was spent in Warm Springs. And somehow it was like a benediction. The unchanging warm springs that come out of the earth at a soothing, constant 89 degrees are surrounded with such natural beauty, tall, sheltering trees, gentle slopes, green grass and beautiful flowers and shrubs. (To be continued next week)

Sincerely,
Florence B. Taylor

Next - 5/11/50 - GEORGIA WARM SPRINGS FOUNDATION
BY-WAYS Table of Contents