As we’ve gone through this present health crisis, historian that I am at heart, I’ve often thought about various scourges from the past and the effects they had on people in those days. One in particular has come to mind on several occasions, and for as much as I may have overdosed on back issues of Life magazine and started having idle daydreams about life in the 1940s and 1950s, all it takes is the mention of one particular affliction to make me come back to the present. And it’s that terrifying affliction1, and the miracle that helped end its reign of terror, that figures into a story Dave Garroway never tired of telling on television programs or sharing in interviews – because it was a story that drove home just how meaningful a miracle it was.
One evening in the 1960s2 Dave was getting ready to go to a testimonial dinner for Dr. Jonas Salk. Young Dave Jr.3 asked his dad where he was going.
“To a dinner for Dr. Salk,” Garroway replied.
“Who’s Dr. Salk?” Dave Jr. asked.
“He’s the man who found the vaccine for polio.”
“What’s polio?”
—
May the day come, and may it be soon, when children will ask the same about our current scourge – and so many other health afflictions we have yet to conquer.4
- If you want to get an idea of just how terrifying it was, this article will help you realize.
- The first instance I can find of this story is in Earl Wilson’s syndicated column of April 17, 1969. Wilson quotes Garroway as saying “As I was leaving to come here tonight” but does not make clear exactly when Garroway’s speech took place. Knowing how columnists work, it could have been anywhere from the night before to several months, if not years, before.
- If we go on the assumption that the story indeed took place in April 1969, Dave Jr. would have been 11 years old.
- Just from those that have stolen members of my own family, the day a child asks “what was cancer?” or “what was Alzheimer’s Disease?” cannot come soon enough.