Helen Julene Butler, Orem, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, March 27, 2010

Transcript (52 pages) of interview by Becky B. Lloyd with Helen Julene Butler on March 27, 2010

Butler (b. 1948) was born in Price, Utah. Her family moved to Dragerton (East Carbon) in 1950. She contracted polio at age three and a half years of age in August 1951. She was transported to the Salt Lake County Hospital, where she remained in isolation for three weeks. She was transferred to Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City and was treated there from September to December of that year. She entered Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake City in early 1952 and stayed there for therapy for eighteen months. She thereafter periodically returned to Shriners for lengthy stays, receiving various surgical procedures-thirteen in all-until she was sixteen years old. Ms. Butler recalls time spent in the hospital, details of her surgeries, and various treatments and therapies received. Butler was paralyzed in all four limbs at the time of her illness. She recovered some use of her left side. She was outfitted with full-length leg braces and crutches and has used a wheelchair in public since 1954. Around her home she used crutches and eventually shed first the left leg brace, then later the right. Ms. Butler discusses post-polio syndrome effects, difficulties and necessary adjustments. She has exclusively used a wheelchair since 2002. Butler received both a master's degree and a PhD in Library Science and currently serves as the Director of the Brigham Young University Library. This interview is part of the Polio Oral History Project. Interviewed by Becky B. Lloyd.