De & Doreen Wiltse
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De & Doreen Wiltse
Updated Jun 26, 2025
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Sheri Johnson
230 favorites
06/14/2014
Comments
AncientFaces
382k+ followers 411 favorites
06/23/2014
This photo is described as "the love of a husband." The wife is in an iron lung (adorned with a rose) due to polio - how awful was polio and how we treated it?!
via Facebook
Today we have vaccinations so no one will get Polio, except for the ppl who think vaccinations cause Autism. I have 3 non verbal Autistic Grandchildren, nothing in the world to do with Autism. My son held off every child from getting vaccinated until they started school, they still grew to Autistic. PLEASE vaccinate.
via Facebook
There are MILLIONS of nitwits who think they know better. The same arrogant know-it-alls who are ruining this country. Poetic justice will be when their own children contract the very diseases that were supposed to have been wiped out. I hope it happens.
via Facebook
Please vaccinate your children. I am old enough to remember the sadness of families and the fright that I would contact polio. One of my children asked me, when they were 10, "what is polio"? I was so happy to realize that they did not have to grow up with the fear.
via Facebook
I remember those days!! frightening! i knew one teenager from LG who was in an iron lung. She was a classmate of my little brother Louie. Sad times.
via Facebook
I can't imagine that! :( my grandmother had polio when she was about ten years old... she survived (obviously lol) but had to use crutches and wheelchair for life. She was one of the strongest women I've ever known and she passed away from post polio syndrome 20 years after they expected her to pass. Polio is an awful awful thing. I miss my grandma....
Kathy Pinna
219 followers 32.9k+ favorites
06/23/2014
Joni Mitchell has post-polio syndrome and I believe started a foundation to help people?
via Facebook
I remember the pictures and news clips about the iron lungs. Polio was a dreaded disease when I was a child. Thank goodness for Jonas Salk and the vaccine he created. And for the subsequent oral vaccine by Dr. Sabin. I remember lining up at school to get the first vaccination and the subsequent boosters.
Kathy Pinna
219 followers 32.9k+ favorites
06/23/2014
I remember the Salk vaccine - painful! (Altho better than polio.) Loved it when we got the oral vaccine!
via Facebook
The Salk shots were painful, Kathy. My upper arm was always red and swollen for a few days after each vaccination.
Kathy Pinna
219 followers 32.9k+ favorites
06/23/2014
Our doc gave it to us in the butt - ow!!
via Facebook
My class got the oral vaccine in a small glass of OJ.
via Facebook
Post polio syndrome was devastating to watch progress on someone you love more than the world. I believe in vaccinations 100 percent because I don't like to think she and so many others suffered just so we can throw away the very thing that keeps us safe. The anti vacation movement disgusts me.
via Facebook
Let's not allow the anti-vaxxers to bring back those dark days.
via Facebook
Stop taking away freedoms not everyone wants their bodies pumped full of god knows what
via Facebook
Better than getting their bodies pumped full of stuff after they've contracted disease!
via Facebook
you have the same name as me! Never met anyone with the same name!
via Facebook
We know exactly what is in vaccines. Stop being a paranoid fool
via Facebook
My brother-in-law contracted it in England in the 50's. He had been set to be a professional cricket player. Hospitalized for 1 year. Post polio syndrome hit him about 15 years ago. He doesn't have to sleep in an iron lung- they stopped manufacturing these a couple of years ago- but he does sleep with a breathing machine that forces air into his lungs at night.
via Facebook
What a foolish & condescending way to describe the method of transmission of Polio. Polio struck all portions of the population in the USA during it's heyday. It was not about "poor living conditions". The transmission is not only fecal-oral contact but through mucosa. Any of that can be passed through the water system. Yes, treat the water, but that doesn't mean this removed the threat of polio ... only the vaccine removed the threat!
via Facebook
When I was a child there was always te fear of a child having polio. The disease was responsible for the death of so many people. Thank God there are vaccines to prevent it. Imagine your child living its life in an iron lung so it could breathe. VACCINATE.
Darlene Boggs
5 favorites
06/23/2014
Those were real lifesavers, but such a brutal way to have to live! My older sister had polio, but thankfully, a very mild case & did not require this treatment. I did care for a patient in an iron lung in the early 70's. She was 16 yrs old (don't remember the exact diagnosis), she needed to be put on a ventilator but adamantly refused when she learned she wouldn't be able to talk. Someone at the hospital remember that they had an iron lung in an old storage area & brought it up to ICU. She was in it for several months, probably took longer to recover than if she's been on a ventilator, but she never regretted refusing the ventilator. Her biggest concern was having someone shave her legs periodically!
via Facebook
Mark - Is that how President Roosevelt got polio??! Did you live through that time? - I did! I knew kids from scrupulously clean homes who got polio. We even had running water, soap & flush toilets "back then". What a ridiculous & stupid thing to say!
If all you anti-vax people had to live had to live through the threat of all the diseases we lived (and died) through as children you'd be begging "someone" to DO "something"!!
If all you anti-vax people had to live had to live through the threat of all the diseases we lived (and died) through as children you'd be begging "someone" to DO "something"!!
via Facebook
Mr. Mark Dennis, FDR had polio and I doubt he lived in filth. So did I at age 10 months, and there was never a cleaner person than my mom. In fact, the doctor wondered if she kept me too clean and because of it I had no resistance. It left me pretty well paralyzed from the waist down. Who knows? They do not know how polio is spread. Only 2 in our town got it ,and the families did not have any friends in common.
via Facebook
I remember a very poor family used to bring their son to the old Tishomingo County Hospital (now Iuka Hospital), in an iron lung in the back of a pickup. They wouldn't call an ambulance. I was a new nurse back then. Sad part was that the patient was the one who made the important family decisions, but a tremendous positive spirit!
via Facebook
I remember the touching story of Melbourne woman, June Middleton. She spent 60 years in an iron lung.
She had been engaged when she contracted this vile disease. Insisted on breaking it off. Her fiancée stayed in contact and his family visited often. In later years, June loved her support dog Angel. She was also able to go, with incredible organisation, to a very rare football match, iron lung, ambulance and footy colours!
She had been engaged when she contracted this vile disease. Insisted on breaking it off. Her fiancée stayed in contact and his family visited often. In later years, June loved her support dog Angel. She was also able to go, with incredible organisation, to a very rare football match, iron lung, ambulance and footy colours!
via Facebook
My mom got Polio afew months after my younger sister was born back in 1960...she had terrible stories to tell, she never said how long she had to stay in "the lung" but they couldn't fit it thru the door of the room so she had to stay in the hallway.
via Facebook
So sad. I remember when I was a very young Lil girl and moma took me to see me cousin.the room was lined with these iron lungs. Broke my heart. I'm suprised I was allowed to go there..I remember receiving polio vac.in a sugar cube.
via Facebook
That was how I got it, too. Pink liquid, if I am remembering correctly.
via Facebook
We were hit with it in our family in 1956. My youngest brother was hospitalized for about 6 weeks. We were inoculated with polio vaccine and quart teemed from school, I was in about 4-5 grade, I was also in a cast for a broken arm when he came home from Sharon General Hospital.
The doctors said to make him ride a tricycle that was too big for him so he would stretch, no crippling effects for him. His roommate was a different story, his mom kept taking off the ice packs and the heating blankets and sat and cried because Jerry was in pain, Jerry is now 63 and still walks with Canadian Canes. We were given the Salk Vaccine the next summer and we have all survived without any physical defects, we were extremely lucky. Many kids in our school were cripples in their legs and arms. My mom was a nurse and she noticed any changes in our strength and took us to the doctor right away. Ray was the youngest and he was the only one that had to be in the iron lung, 4 of the longest weeks in his three year old life!
The doctors said to make him ride a tricycle that was too big for him so he would stretch, no crippling effects for him. His roommate was a different story, his mom kept taking off the ice packs and the heating blankets and sat and cried because Jerry was in pain, Jerry is now 63 and still walks with Canadian Canes. We were given the Salk Vaccine the next summer and we have all survived without any physical defects, we were extremely lucky. Many kids in our school were cripples in their legs and arms. My mom was a nurse and she noticed any changes in our strength and took us to the doctor right away. Ray was the youngest and he was the only one that had to be in the iron lung, 4 of the longest weeks in his three year old life!
via Facebook
I had friends who had polio, some handicapped as a result. Two died. The initial polio and the disability it caused were bad enough. Many suffer Post-Polio Syndrome which, for someone in their 60s and 70s, already dragging their bodies around on crutches, is an affliction too cruel to contemplate. I was very glad that I was just of the age to benefit from the vaccine.
via Facebook
And what was so awful about the way we treated polio? People were put in iron lungs so that they could breathe, which is generally considered to be a good thing. There was no other kind of respirator in those days. And just because she is in an iron lung in this picture doesn't mean she had to spend the rest of her life like that. I only had to be in one for about a month.
via Facebook
Amazed at how soon we have forgotten about polio. I was born in 1956. I still remember how relieved my mom was when I took that sugar cube. I also remember attending church with a man who was a schoolmate of my mom and had contracted polio in high school. I know my parents were not allowed to go to the public swimming pool as children out of fear of polio by their parents. Their parents were not able to send them to live with relatives in the country during summer break as so many parents did. The current crop of anti-vaccinate parents just chap my butt with their ignorance. Whooping cough epidemic in California in 2014 who would have thought it possible.
via Facebook
Unfortunately, many were never able to escape the iron lung or its successor that made it possible to leave the iron lung, but not breathe on their own. I remember going to Galveston & passing Texas Crippled Children's Hospital. They would have all these iron lungs out on the balconies so the kids could get some fresh air. Those that didn't need the lung often had "post-polio syndrome" in their later years. The muscles that had taken over for the damaged ones gave out & people then had problems again.
Lucia Perry
171 favorites
06/24/2014
This is what I grew up seeing. Please inoculate yourselves and children! These childhood diseases killed! And polio made a recurrence with many survivors later in life.
Lucia Perry
171 favorites
06/24/2014
And my sister got whopping cough last year, age 70. Bad.
via Facebook
My mum had polio when she was younger (before I was born), and I remember her telling us she had to have her lung collapsed as part of the treatment ..she had chest and side pains and went to doctor for treatment and ended up staying in hospital - including iron lung treatment - for just over two years .... .... but luckily she survived, got married, had kids, and lived to 70 odd years ... Memories are forever..
via Facebook
My late mother was a survivor of Polio and the treatment by others in the street everyday right up till 2 years ago when she passed from cancer people avoided her because of the physical affects it left behind young girl I would always kiss her arm and tell her she was beautiful. I knew it affected her deeply.
via Facebook
My very first nursing job was at our municipal hospital back home. I worked on the polio floor and we had 4 patients who still slept in iron lungs during the night. They were able to use portable respirators during the day, but were dependent on the lungs during the night. This was 1979, and one of them had developed the disease when he was 3. He had lived his entire life in the hospital. If that does not make people realize vaccinations are important, I don't know what would.
via Facebook
I remember my mother taking me and my brother to a school building were they were giving Polio preventive medicine on a sugar cube 65 -70 years ago. I had an uncle and a school mate who had Polio and it left them with a crippled leg. Please make sure your children get their shots or Polio could come back again.
Adele Austin
7 favorites
06/24/2014
I went with my mom to visit a lady in an iron lung in the hospital who was the mother of one of my friends. I will never forget that experience. I was horrified that would happen to me! Please do not allow polio to become part of our world again!
via Facebook
It breaks my heart when I hear parents say they don't want to vaccinate their children for anything! I grew up with Carrie Tingley Hospital as a place we went to sing to the "inmates"! My husband was one of those "inmates" for a year, I found this out after dating him! He is a lesson to all who see him doing things he shouldn't be able to do! Thank God for those iron lungs or more would have died not being able to breathe!
via Facebook
I heard they still have a few left who are in them. We have a lady at church who had polio when she was young and recovered completely. She married, had kids, and then suddenly it came back and she's in a wheel chair and unable to walk. I guess it's not that unusual.
Nancy Obraske
2 favorites
07/15/2014
I remember saving pop tabs to help raise money for the Iron Lung machine when I was in Grade school.
Mary Krempel
1 follower 17 favorites
07/16/2014
and is why schoolchildren were inoculated against polio, and smallpox. Folks who do not 'believe' in vaccines, do you really want to go back to this? Without the Iron Lung these loved ones would have died. Some spent the rest of their lives inside it. Please, Vaccinate!
Sheri Johnson
230 favorites
07/19/2014
She lived into her 80s and they had a wonderful life. I miss her and Grandpa terribly
Gary Capehart
6 favorites
07/21/2014
I had polio in 1950 at age 5. I remember when I left the hospital the nurse carried me into ward with iron lungs all around in a large room. She was showing me how lucky I was because I only had a mild case. I'm almost 69 years old and I can remember that very vividly. I can't imagine a life inside an iron lung.
Dee (Delores) Lamb
5 favorites
07/30/2014
This brings back such memories. I'm currently 69 and remember being in one of these as a young child. I just woke up one morning and couldn't move my legs. We've come a long way in medicine today but the vaccines are more important than ever.
Jeanet Groenink
1 follower 227 favorites
07/30/2014
It was a terrible disease, I had my shots against it ,when I was a teen.
via Facebook
My mother had polio as a child and her brothers would pull her to school in a little wagon. It was a mile to school one way. In her later adult yrs. she could walk brief periods of time but she would tire easily and had to sit at an angle or her hip bone would hurt.
People tagged in this photo
Married Emery Delos Wiltse on October 16, 1943 in Los Angeles, CA
Was stricken with Polio as a young adult.
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Sheri Johnson
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Gary Capehart
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Mary Krempel
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Dee (Delores) Lamb
My maiden name was Vaughan. I married Brian Sutton and I'm currently married to Dana Lamb. My mother's maiden name was Dorothy Trump. My father's name was Charles Vaughan and he was born in Lexington, Ky. My mother is from Uniontown, Pa.
Jeanet Groenink
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