After Linda walked us around the back of Kress Hall, we turned right and then took a breezeway up through two buildings toward the quad. We turned right and walked up some steps to Founder’s Hall. There was a memorial there to honor the polio researchers. It is called the Polio Hall of Fame. There were 17 famous faces, including Sabin, Salk, Roosevelt, and several other scientists who helped aid the fight against polio.
Beside of Founder’s Hall, we were able to tour the campus pool (Wilson Pool). This pool was built in 1942 because it was difficult to transport patients off campus to swim each day in t he Warm Springs. There were therapy tables, chairs, lifts, and parallel bars to aid in pool exercises. The pool is only 4 feet deep and it was kept at a temperature of about 90 degrees. This was to help patients’ muscles relax and be able to get the most of their water therapies. As you can see from our pictures, Flat Suddreth was really enjoying this part of the tour, as he was trying the chair lift.
As we continued the tour, we entered the Wilson Building. This building was used as the infirmary. Today, it is used as part of the hospital. It is having some renovations, as it is in need of new ceilings. The money for these repairs has been slow, due to budget crunching with the state. Attached to this building is the North Wing. It was built as a hospital for polios. Many patients returned year after year to Warm Springs to have repetitive surgeries done on their muscles. Outside this building, patients had to pass ‘walking tests’ before they were allowed to go home. There were parallel bars, steps with varying degrees of steepness, where patients could practice mobility. Before building codes were changed to accommodate the handicapped, people with wheelchairs did not have ramps, so they had to practice maneuvering curbs and steps. There were different kinds of surfaces outside in the yard for practicing these skills.
After we left the North Wing, we saw two other buildings from the outside only. Since there were current patients inside, we were not allowed inside. The patients there today are there for rehabilitation therapy or for long term acute care. Some are soldiers who came home from Iraq.
We continued our tour by stopping at Roosevelt Hall. This building was built in 1953, so it would not have been there in Ann Fay’s time. There is a memorial there to Roosevelt on the right and the saying, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself”. On the left is Helen Keller, another famous person who overcame great disabilities. From here, we entered the dining hall, where in Ann Fay’s time would have had linen table cloths on each table. FDR came to Warm Springs many years for the annual Founder’s Day Thanksgiving Day dinner with the patients. Although he had trouble standing for long periods of time, we were told that after each Thanksgiving Day meal, he would stand in the doorway and shake each person’s hand until everyone left. This must have been very difficult for him to do.
Our last stop of the day was very special! The Smithsonian has had an exhibit at Warm Springs called “What ever happened to polio?”. The last day of the exhibit was January 17th. It was not going to be picked up until January 30th, so Linda let us in to see it. We were the last group to be able to tour this exhibit and the artifacts that will be sent back to Washington, DC this weekend. At this point, my camera was out of batteries and I did not get very good pictures of the exhibit. I will let someone else blog this portion of the trip…
David is emailing me brochures and a teacher guide about Warm Springs, so that we have more information to share with the students.
The World’s Largest Drive-in sits on more than two acres and can accommodate 600 cars and over eight hundred people inside. On days of Georgia Tech football games up to 30,000 people visit The Varsity. It sells more than two miles of hotdogs daily, a ton of onion rings, 2500 pounds of fresh cut potatoes, 5000 homemade fried pies, and 300 gallons of chili, all of which are made from scratch daily. The downtown Varsity is also the world’s largest single outlet for Coca-Cola.
