Joylene Kelsch Eves [and] Carol Kelsch, Provo, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, March 27, 2010

Transcript (49 pages) of interview by Becky B. Lloyd with Joylene Kelsch Eves and Carol Kelsch on March 27, 2010

Ms. Kelsch (b, 1942) and Ms. Eves (b. 1947) are sisters. Both were born in Heber City, Utah, and grew up in Provo, Utah. Ms. Kelsch contracted polio at age ten. Ms. Eves was told as an adult that she had apparently suffered from a mild case of polio while a youngster. In the interview, both women discuss family, growing up and schooling. Carol contracted polio at age ten in early September 1952 just prior to the start of her fifth grade. She describes getting sick. She was sent to the Salt Lake County Hospital where she received a spinal tap and was placed in isolation for about a week. (Her family was also quarantined for the first month of her illness; her siblings were kept from attending school during that month. Additionally, her family was instructed to burn all of Carol's clothing and possessions). She was later transferred to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City. She describes her recollections of the hospital conditions and her experiences. Carol's treatments included hot pack therapy, hydrotherapy in a Hubbard tank and straight board therapy with her braces. She was paralyzed from the neck down, but gradually regained use of left arm and limited use of her right. She used a wheelchair and received outpatient physical therapy for a year after discharge. She discusses challenges in accommodation issues at school, including during college at Brigham Young University. After high school graduation, she spent three months at the May T. Morris clinic in San Francisco, California, for advanced occupational therapy. Carol completed her Master's degree in speech therapy and worked in that career for thirty-seven years. She discusses her challenges in adapting to post-polio syndrome symptoms, which eventually forced her into a motorized wheelchair in 2005. Joy discusses various surgeries to correct orthopedic problems, and the associated breathing and mobility complications following those surgeries. Her physicians made the diagnosis post-polio syndrome, the details of which she relates. This interview is part of the Polio Oral History Project. Interviewer: Becky Lloyd