H. V. Nelles
H.V. "Viv" Nelles was born in Paris, Ontario in 1942. He himself did not contract polio, but he recalled the panic surrounding polio season.
"The threat of Polio was sort of constantly in the air...Like nuclear war it could breakout at any time. We were constantly conscious of the threat of polio... Bombs are going off in Nevada and in Pacific Islands. It could easily be the end of the world. But the world didn’t end, and we didn’t have any nuclear holocaust and the same with polio. It was out there, and it was perfectly clear people were getting it, but I wasn’t getting it and no one in my family was getting it. Nobody that I knew was getting it, but that didn’t make it less scary."
Brantford Expositor, 18 April, 1955.
As a kid rural Paris, he was taught not to go into certain bodies of water during the summer. Being kids, they of course did not listen and places like the local Rest Acres swimming hole remained popular.
Another memory Viv shared was scare tactics used to teach kids about polio.
"They were more frightening than anything else. I don’t ever remember the lessons we learned, but I do remember how scary it was seeing rooms full of iron lungs and children with crippled bodies and things like that."
Brantford Expositor, 12 April, 1955.
Viv remember also recalled local fundraising efforts on behalf of the March of Dimes, the Canadian charity which collected donations to assist families impacted by polio and support vaccine research.
"We put a double-sided masking tape along the curb along the main street of Paris, Ontario. Both sides. Parking was banned during this time and people came to stick a dime on this sticky tape...The whole incentive was to try and fill the entire tape with dimes both side of the street...The March of Dimes was a very prominent organizer."
Viv is a recently retired Professor of History with an illustrious career at many universities. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, winner of the Tyrell Medal for Historical Scholarship, and a two-time recipient of the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize in Canadian History.