I was one of twelve nurses who arrived at the hospital the following morning. Ten of us were volunteers, most of us local. Two were from the State Board of Health. We were young and old, married and single. I was the only one whose uniform was at least a size too large. I hadn’t realized how much weight I’d lost over the last few months. I didn’t care. I’d put on my cap, my white shoes, my white nylons, then buttoned my uniform and smiled at myself in the mirror. “You’re an RN,” I whispered to my reflection. I hoped I would remember all my training.
At least twenty more nurses were on their way from other parts of the country, due to arrive in a few days by train or bus. It felt strange that morning to have a hospital filled with nurses and no patients, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the ratio would soon change. And there was so much preparatory work to be done.
Ruth was angry and not talking to either Henry or myself.
“It will pass,” Henry said to me, though I knew he was bothered by his mother’s disapproval. She’d actually suggested that I share Hattie’s cottage with her instead of sullying the house with all the germs I’d be bringing home, but Henry silenced her with a stern “enough, Mama!” I was touched by how he was sticking up for me, as well as how hard he was working day and night as he split his time between the factory and the hospital. He had to be exhausted.
One of the nurses was Grace Wilding, Mrs. Wilding’s niece. She wore her hair, as dark as mine, in a victory roll, as I did, and I felt an instant bond with her.
“Isn’t this simply staggering?” she said, sweeping her arm around the ward we were preparing for patients. “I can’t believe what’s been accomplished here in two days.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s amazing.” The idea for the emergency hospital had been conceived on Thursday, and here we were on Saturday morning, standing in the middle of a hospital ward with the scent of sawn wood still strong in the air. All the bed frames had been fitted with mattresses and they lined the walls, waiting for us to make them with our donated linens. We needed to get to it quickly: the first patients were due to arrive that afternoon.
We spent the morning getting acclimated to the hospital’s two sun-filled wards, the second of which was still under construction. With their pine walls and bare floors, they felt more like wide-open mountain cabins than a hospital. Volunteers, including Henry, hung screens in the windows as we worked, and someone delivered a raft of fly swatters to us, just in case those screens didn’t do the job. We hammered nails into the walls and hung the swatters. Women from the community—including several I recognized from Ruth’s book clubs and the Ladies of the Homefront—scrubbed fifty-five bed frames from top to bottom. I knew that other Hickory women were preparing food for the hospital in their homes, since the kitchen wouldn’t be functional for a few days yet. I doubted there was a man or woman in Hickory untouched by the goings-on at the former Fresh Air Camp.
We made all the beds, filled jars with alcohol for the thermometers, and prepared a giant vat of disinfectant where we would empty all patient waste to prevent the spread of disease. And then we began what turned out to be the most arduous task of the morning: cutting lengths of wool from donated blankets to be used in something called the Sister Kenny Method. A volunteer physiotherapist explained the approach to us: when a patient with paralysis arrived, we would further cut the wool to precise measurements for his or her affected limbs. Then, at least a couple of times a day, we’d boil the pieces of wool, run them through a wringer, and wrap them around those paralyzed arms or legs. Once the hot packs were removed, we’d exercise the limbs to keep the muscles from atrophying. In the three polio cases I’d seen as a student nurse, we’d immobilized the affected limbs with splints and in one case a cast. Suddenly that approach was viewed with disfavor and this new, incredibly labor-intensive treatment was what we’d be using. It made sense in theory to me, but after only thirty minutes of cutting lengths of wool, my hand was cramping up. I didn’t really care. For the first time since nursing school, I felt myself a part of something important. No one treated me as an outsider here. No one treated me as Hank Kraft’s wife. I was just a nurse. I was happily one of them.
One end of the ward now held several therapy tubs made by a Hickory metal worker, along with an iron lung that had been sent from Morganton. Fortunately, they also sent along a technician trained in the huge respirator’s use. The machine was long and green and simply overwhelming to behold with all its ports and knobs and giant pump. I knew the iron lung could be a lifesaver, but I also knew that caring for an iron-lung patient was tricky. I felt intimidated by the respirator’s presence and hoped we never had a patient that sick.
In the clearing outside the two wards stood a small admissions tent where one of the nurses and a local physician, a Dr. Matthews, were preparing for our first patients. In another tent, an epidemiologist set up his tables and microscopes, getting ready to research the cause of the disease, and more researchers were on their way. I remembered Vincent wanting to stay longer in Chicago to help with the research and I was angry at myself now for being impatient to get him home. I’d been selfish and so shortsighted.
* * *
The patients seemed to arrive all at once that afternoon. A few came by ambulance. Two others were delivered to us by hearse, since ambulances were in short supply. It gave me a jolt to see those hearses pull up in front of the admissions tent, but I had the feeling I would need to get used to the sight. The ward was suddenly a flurry of activity and I was assigned my first patient, a little girl named Carol Ann. Five years old, she’d awakened the day before in pain from head to toe. When she tried to get out of bed, she fell, and within hours, her legs were paralyzed. One of the men carried her into the ward and I, dressed in my mask and protective gown, tried to settle her in a bed. She screamed and sobbed, asking over and over again for her mama, who was not allowed in the ward. My heart broke for her. This would be one of the hardest parts of my job, I thought: dealing with my patients’ absolute terror over being separated from their parents—from everyone they knew—when they were so sick and helpless. The quarantine would have to last ten days, and the parents who watched their children being carried or wheeled away from them were as terrified as the patients.
By late afternoon, the ward buzzed with activity. My fellow nurses and I were exhausted from stumbling our way into some sort of routine, learning care techniques that were new to many of us, and treating a disease some of us had never seen before. We knew this was only the beginning. More patients were on their way.
I was a little bit in love with Carol Ann by the end of that day. She was a very sick girl, but not so sick that she couldn’t respond to the funny stories I told her as I wrapped her legs in the hot wool packs and exercised her stiff limbs, trying to keep her mind off her pain and fear. But her giggling could give way to tears in an instant. How was I going to leave her at the end of the day when she’d finally gotten attached to me?
The night nurse who came in to take over for me scared her. I doubted the little girl had ever met a colored person before and she screamed and clung to me as I tried to leave. So the nurse, Betty, and I sat together with her, singing songs from behind our masks for nearly an hour while Carol Ann grew more comfortable with Betty, and I knew the emotional component was going to be as important, as critical, as the physical in our patients’ recovery.
* * *
A volunteer drove me home that evening. Ruth was already in bed—or at least in her room—by the time I arrived, and Henry was still working, either at the hospital or the factory. I didn’t know where he was. I’d lost track of him sometime during the day.
A letter from Gina was propped up on the small table in the foyer and I carried it upstairs. I was a sweaty, grimy mess and more tired than I could ever remember being, so I took a much needed bath before settling into bed to read the letter. It was short, full of how much she missed Mac. She was worried about him. In his last letter, she told me, he’d written that he would never be the same after all he’d seen and done.
And I found the doll you asked for, she wrote. It’s very cute and I’ve already mailed it, so you should have it soon.
I smiled to myself. It would be a while before I’d be able to take the doll to Jilly. My life was too full right now. My life was too full. I could barely believe it.
By Sunday evening, the Hickory Emergency Infantile Paralysis Hospital had sixteen very sick and frightened young patients, two doctors, twelve nurses, one epidemiologist, two physiotherapists, and dozens of meals provided by women in the community. When I left that Sunday night, as Betty and the other colored—and a few white—nurses came in for their night shift, I was exhausted to the point of tears and I had not felt so happy, so simply in love with my life, in a very long time.