Editor’s note: A number of readers responded to Chattanooga Free Press page Editor Clint Cooper’s March 22 editorial, “Polio’s reminders for today,” with their personal recollections about the disabling, life-threatening disease that afflicted thousands from the 1910s through the early 1950s. Here are some of their stories.
It wasn’t until several of his friends no longer came out to play in the summer of 1952 in Opp, Alabama, that gave young Scott Cook pause.
Where are they, he asked his mother. Home sick, she said.
“Within a few days,” Cook, 72, wrote recently, “I was suffering from flu-like symptoms that caused my fever to spike to 104 and 105 degrees for several days. I can still recall having my forehead wiped with a cool rag.”
Cook had a form of poliomyelitis, usually shortened as polio.