In the spring on 1944 , World War II was still raging in both Europe and the Pacific. At the same time, another deadly threat was invading the U.S. state of North Carolina – a dreaded polio epidemic. Regional hospitals were quickly maxed out with young, sick children. Desperate parents needed a solution, but what to do? Then, “The Miracle of Hickory” occurred. A small NC town stepped forward and built the Hickory Emergency Infantile Paralysis Hospital in just THREE days.
Although funds came from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (The March of Dimes), it was the people of Hickory that made ‘the Miracle’ possible. The temporary hospital quickly received hundreds of young patients regardless of race or their ability to pay. Polio was feared by both parents and towns alike. At the time, no treatment or vaccine existed. What inspired the people of Hickory to react with compassion and courage, rather than fear, when the epidemic hit?
Polio epidemics in young children were widespread in the 1930s and 1940s. Fear and paranoia spread too as doctors were not sure how the disease was spread or how to treat it. People called it infantile paralysis because it mostly struck young children and infants. Its medical name was poliomyelitis, caused by an insidious poliovirus. It crippled young adults as well, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt before he was U.S. president.
Some children had only flu-like symptoms. A quarter however became partially and often permanently paralyzed. The poliovirus maliciously attacks the spinal cord, resulting in weakened limbs and often paralysis. Doctors applied hot compresses and fitted weak children with metal arm or leg braces. When breathing muscles of the chest became paralyzed, death was likely without an iron lung.
In parents, polio instilled an overwhelming helplessness. Imagine a perfectly healthy child suddenly becoming paralyzed from polio. Scientists did not know how the virus spread. Some thought flies and mosquitos were the culprit. Some believed the virus was airborne. Health officials wondered if it spread in contaminated water (the actual route of transmission).
In 1944, Hickory was just a small town of around 15,000 people.
Many of the young men were overseas, serving in World War II. The Hickory Daily Record (HDR) announced the first case of polio on June 7th 1944. The 17-month-old girl was hospitalized at Charlotte Memorial Hospital. The following day, they reported a four-year-old girl was also hospitalized in Charlotte. Cases 3 and 4 were announced on June 10th and 12th, ten and twelve-year-old boys.
By June 14th, there were 10 cases in three counties around Hickory. Parents, doctors, and city officials began to fret. Could this be the start of another polio epidemic? Dr. H. C. Whims, the Catawba county public health physician issued a public statement: “Community hysteria does not help. Do not become panic stricken.” The Charlotte hospital reported a total of 14 cases in all.
The counties shuttered all swimming pools, libraries and movie theaters. The State Board of Health warned parents to not send their children to group activities in summer camps, playgrounds, and even Sunday school. People avoid congregating in stores and even in churches, for fear of contracting the dreaded disease. Drivers passing through infected towns rolled up their windows, despite the summer heat, afraid to breathe contaminated air.
Two days later on June 16th, a headline in the HDR proclaimed: “Polio Epidemic Bars Public Places To Tots.” Dr. Whims was quoted: “An epidemic of infantile paralysis definitely exists in Catawba county. Children are prohibited from attending churches, theaters, playgrounds, swimming pools, nurseries, and similar places.” He again pleaded for calm, pointing out that panic benefited no one. He urged parents to not delay in calling their doctor regarding a suspected sick child.
Radio station WHKY begins disseminating information to the parents and public regarding the symptoms to watch for in children. June 19th brought a news report of nine new cases, just over the weekend. The new patients reportedly had been swimming recently OR drunk unprocessed milk from dairy cows OR lived in homes without screens, the windows allowing flies inside. It also mentioned problems brewing at Charlotte Memorial Hospital.
The hospital’s polio wards were full.
Before long, regional hospitals like in Charlotte were overwhelmed and could not take any more patients. Dr. C. H. Crabtree of the National Foundation arrives in the state to consult with local doctors. The Army provides him three large tents for the grounds outside the Charlotte hospital to be staffed by Red Cross nurses.
The Hickory area, the center of the epidemic, has no such hospital. Dr. Crabtree gets directions and drives to Hickory on Thursday, June 22nd. There, he confers with Dr. Gaither Hahn, chairman of the Catawba County Chapter of the Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, and Dr. H.C. Whims. It was a solemn meeting.
The Charlotte hospital – including the new tent wards – was quickly filled to capacity and would be accepting no more patients. They realized that a local hospital was desperately needed. Dr. Hahn had been considering a daunting solution and offered up his proposal. They should commandeer Lake Hickory Health Camp, three miles north of the city, and turn it into a temporary hospital.
It was a 62 acre, wooded, “fresh air” camp where underprivileged kids could enjoy the outdoors. It had just one small, stone building, erected during the Depression. Dr. Whims had authority over the facility, so he could make it happen. The three men unanimously agreed. It would be called the Hickory Emergency Infantile Paralysis Hospital.
Three doctors then divided up what needed to be done next. Dr. Whims would supervise renovating the camp into a hospital, adding Army tents and wooden buildings. Dr. Hahn would be in charge of communication and finding supplies and hospital equipment. Dr. Crabtree would use his March of Dimes contacts to secure operational money and recruit staff from across the country.
Dr. Hahn then called the HDR to get the word out fast. The headline that day read: “New Polio Cases Will Be Treated At Health Camp.” Provisions are being made to use the Catawba County Health Camp as a center for the treatment of new infantile paralysis cases that develop here and in adjoining counties. The Charlotte Memorial Hospital cannot accommodate additional cases.
Dr. Whims then called a team of local architects and laid out the challenge – build a temporary hospital in less than a week. He drove them out to the camp so they could sketch out plans for the new facility on the spot. By mid-afternoon, three local lumber companies began delivering truckloads of free pine lumber. Before the day was finished, local carpenters, electricians, and plumbers had volunteered to join the construction project.
Floodlights were set up so that work could continue through the night.
Radio station WHKY broadcasted a list of needed items: cribs, beds, bedding, blankets, refrigerators, stoves and office furniture. Rationing for the War kept supplies scarce. All of it shows up, along with women volunteers to staff the offices. HDR editorials encouraged public to both accept and join the humanitarian effort, rather than shunning polio victims like other communities did.
Dozens joined the work effort on Friday, June 23rd, even in the rain. The National Guard cleared trees and brush to make room for the new hospital addition. A prison work team dug a trench for a new three-mile water main from Hickory to the new hospital. Inmates from the Raleigh women’s prison would staff the kitchen and laundry. Volunteer electricians from Duke Power Company wired the hospital for electricity.
Friday’s newspaper contained more pleas for assistance. They needed seamstresses to make hospital gowns. Washing machines and electric fans were needed, plus toys for the children. Dr. Hahn wrangled 55 Army hospital beds and mattresses. An iron lung respirator arrived on Friday. Road signs go up in the city, with arrows pointing to the hospital. Hickory folks came to the site to carry supplies, paint walls, and haul away trash.
By late Saturday afternoon, just 54 hours after it was first conceived by the trio of physicians, the Hickory Emergency Infantile Paralysis Hospital was able to admit its first patients. The hospital’s initial nursing staff consisted of just 12 volunteer nurses. It was truly a miraculous accomplishment, dubbed “The Miracle of Hickory” by the national press.
The patients kept coming — in cars, ambulances, even hearses lent by local undertakers. The three organizers make an early, crucial decision – treatment will be for all races with no segregation. The staff does the best they can to treat the disease with braces, flexibility therapy, limb massages, and hot compresses. No garbage or medical waste is allowed to leave the new facility. It is all burned.
By Monday, June 26th, the hospital admitted 16 new patients over the weekend.
With so many quick admissions, Dr. Hahn knew that additional space would soon be needed. Two military hospital tents were sent for and workers had wooden floors completed by the time the tents arrived. The hospital kitchen was not yet functional, so Hickory women stepped up and prepared hundreds of meals from their homes.
An HDR editorial praised: “The fine spirit of commendable cooperation in Hickory. Long rows of donated hospital cots fill the knotty pine wards. Nurses in crisp white uniforms go quickly about their work. The best-trained doctors and nurses the nation has to offer were at work using every weapon known to modern medicine.”
On June 27th, the iron lung was first used on a 27-year-old man in critical condition, paralyzed from the chest down. One week after the Hickory hospital opened its doors, 45 patients had been admitted. After only a week, staffing of the hospital with volunteers from around the country was nearly complete.
Within weeks, the temporary hospital had a remarkable unit of doctors, nurses, and therapists from cities as far as Chicago, Baltimore and Boston. Many nurses were serving in the war, so student nurses, called the “Angels of Mercy,” were recruited from nursing schools, They were boarded in local Hickory homes for free. The city provided school buses to ferry them back and forth to the hospital.
Not everyone in the county was on board with the effort. Dissenting voices claimed the patients would spread the disease to the community. Hickory would be labeled a “Polio City,” shunned by the rest of the state with businesses suffering. The latter concern was valid. Even with the miraculous hospital, Hickory couldn’t escape being labelled “Polio City” by some.
The March of Dimes instead bragged about Hickory on its posters and in magazines around the country. Though the word “miracle” implies heavenly intervention, the successful effort came about because of an abundance of courage and compassion. The people of Hickory turned a nightmare epidemic into a badge of honor .
Once the center was built, operational funding came primarily from the National Foundation (March of Dimes), founded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, himself a victim of polio. In July 1944, a reporter and a photographer from LIFE magazine arrived to do a feature story on the emergency hospital. The result was four pages of photographs plus a photo essay in the July 31, 1944 issue.
In March 1945, with the epidemic waning, Hickory transferred its remaining 87 patients to the hospital in Charlotte. They were moved in a mile-long caravan of 12 ambulances and 70 cars. Ranging in age from 1 to 29 years, the patients left reluctantly because of the care and love received in Hickory. After nearly nine months of operation, the Hickory Emergency Infantile Paralysis Hospital closed on March 5, 1945.
Over that time, 663 patients were evaluated; 528 diagnosed with polio, of which 454 were admitted. Only 12 patients died, the lowest percentage of any polio facility in the U.S. at the time. An accurate accounting of the money expended by Hickory to care for the patients is impossible to estimate. Many donations were made spontaneously with no books or receipts kept.
Following World War II, the facilities were used for returning wounded soldiers. Later, the old stone building would become an Army Reserve armery. Polio would rear its head two more times in the Hickory area before a vaccine finally arrived on the scene. Dr. Jonas Salk invented a polio vaccine in 1955. Parents were quick to protect their families with vaccination.
With a large nationwide vaccination campaign, the threat of polio subsided. In 1962, Dr. Albert Sabin introduced the oral vaccine, administered on a sugar cube. Some baby boomers today may remember standing in long line to receive their vaccine, which effectively ended polio in America. Today, a park’s baseball diamonds occupy the land that once held the miracle hospital.
The people of Hickory exhibited both courage and humanitarian compassion during the 1944 polio epidemic. The true miracle is not constructing a new hospital in three just days, but rather how the people of Hickory opened its doors and helped polio victims in need, while others allowed fear and distrust to hinder any response.