It was the spring of 1952. I was 5 years old and looking forward to starting school in the fall We didn’t have kindergarten so this would my first year of school. We lived on the farm north east of Wells. I begin having trouble with my left knee and developed a limp. My parents took me to the doctor in Bennington and he examined me and x-rayed my knee and couldn’t find anything wrong with it. My patents decided that I was faking to draw attention to myself. One afternoon my mom was hosting her women’s club. All of the women would bring their children and we would play outside in the yard while the moms had club in the house. That day my knee hurt so bad that I wasn’t able to run and play so I stayed on the front porch. I sat on the porch and played the sheriff. When dad came home from work mom told him there was definitely something wrong because I had stayed on the porch all afternoon with all of those kids there.
So mom & dad took me to Minneapolis to see Dr. Foutz. As I was walking back to the exam room Dr, Foutz said “why that boy has Pertheis disease. As we learned this is a disease that affects young children, mostly boys age 4 to 10. It’s a rare disease affecting only 1 -3 in 20,000. With Pertheis the ball of the hip joint dissolves causing a limp and pain in the knee.
Dr. Foutz sent me to Salina to Dr. McCray who became my doctor for the next three years. Treatment involved traction and a brace. I spent 30 days in Asbury Hospital in the children’s ward flat on my back with my left leg in traction. For some reason Ray & Fred weren’t allowed to come into the children’s ward to visit me. The ward was on the ground floor so we were able to open the window by my bed and talk that way.
When I got out of the hospital I had to wear a brace on my left leg and an elevated shoe on my right foot. I wore this brace for three years and never once walked on my left leg. My would take me to St, Johns hospital every month for x-rays of my hip. I found out later that the Cripple Children’s Association covered the cost of my hospital stay, doctor visits and x-rays. After three years I was so excited to get the brace off and get a pair of regular shoes. I put on my new shoes and started to walk and fell flat on my face because I had no muscle in my left leg. I had to use crutches until I got the strength built up in my leg.
Although it was considered an extremely rare disease there were two other boys my age in Ottawa County that had the disease and one older person. The older guy and one of the guys my age had a limp for the rest of their lives.
So I started elementary school at the Wells Grade School with a brace on my left leg and an elevated shoe on my right foot. All my siblings had went to school at Sunnyside which was only two miles from our home. Wells was eight miles from home so we rode the school bus to school. Our “school bus” was a Ford station wagon with the rear seat facing the back. The older boys always got the rear seat. Our bus driver was Frank Comfort. We spent a lot of time on the bus because we were the first ones to get picked up in the morning and the last to get off at night.
My brace kept my leg stiff and had latches to allow me to bend my knee as I sat down. When I would run, I ran stiff legged. The day before Thanksgiving a huge snow storm started moving in. Frank showed up at mid-morning and told our teacher that he needed to get started taking the kids home. Our teacher, Mrs. Damarn, ignored his admonitions and said we needed to stay until one pm so that the day would count as a full day. Frank waited in the parking lot until Mrs. Damarn released us and we headed home. We didn’t make it. It took Frank all afternoon to make his rounds. It was after dark and we were about 2 1/2 miles from our home when we got stuck. We had just passed Siler’s house so Frank said we needed to walk back to Siler’s. Since I was wearing a brace, Frank carried me through the drifts to safety.
We spent the night at Siler’s. There was me, my brothers Ray & Fred, my sister Deanna and Larry Welch. Larry would have been considered “special” in today’s school system. When we all got into bed there was a rack of rifles on the wall. Dixie Siler told us, now don’t you touch those guns. Of course as soon as Dixie left the room Larry got one of the rifles down and was messing with it. I was sure he was going to shoot one of us but he didn’t and the rest of the night was uneventful. Of course there wasn’t any communication so our parents had no idea where we had spent the night.
The next morning we were sitting at the breakfast table and Dixie brought out this jar and ask us to guess what was in it. Of course none of us knew. Turns out it was Carmen’s fingers that he had cut off in a farming accident. A neighbor had gathered them up and brought them to Carmen.
