The Polio Journals: Lessons From My Mother Summary

The Polio Journals: Lessons from My Mother, by Anne K. Gross, is the heartbreaking and emotional version of one woman’s life as a polio survivor. Carol Greenfeld Rosenstiel, the author’s mother, contracted polio in 1927 at the young age of two. From then until her death from lung cancer in 1985, Carol Rosenstiel was a paraplegic, suffering paralysis below the waist. She did successfully marry, raise children, and enjoy a profession as a concert musician while confined to a wheelchair. She kept journals that Anne Gross used, after her mother’s death, to reminisce her mother’s life. She was encouraged by her courageous and pitiless efforts to attain recognition in the world of the non-disabled.

Gross has printed more than just the story of

her mother and her family, as The Polio Journals is also the history of a disease that once threatened entire communities. It killed and damaged children and adults at random and in large numbers. Polio was once believed to be an illness caused by unhygienic living conditions and was thus a social stigma, as well as an upsetting disease. Carol Rosenstiel was the descendant of Eastern European Jews who already faced the evils connected with immigrants in the early years of the twentieth century in the US. These evils included, but were not limited to, poverty, incompetence, and anti-Semitism. To be tormented further with the burden of caring for a daughter suffering the result of polio was overwhelming. Gross does a fabulous job in describing her grandparents’ efforts to inspire their daughter to build a “normal” life in spite of her handicaps. Not forgetting the toll those efforts took on the entire family for generations.
By far, this is a great read. I was captivated into Carol’s journey, because of the compelling story and the understandable technique of writing. Knowing this is about both Gross's life and her mother's, the sentiments that it triggered were profound and at times overpowering. I valued the honesty with which she depicted both the challenges and successes that the entire family experienced.
What kept me reading were the various views of Carol’s life.

We see family, the history of the disease, development of medicine and society, and intimate reflections of President Roosevelt (as a person). Whether or not one has dealt with a debilitating disease such as polio, this book provides us an essence of strength, learning to overcoming trials, along with understanding.

The author both an intelligent writer and a clinical psychologist. Gross received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Duke University, where she committed her career to the treatment of individuals with disabilities and chronic illnesses. She entwines her training and knowledge into this story with commentary from experts in several associated health care fields. Their interdisciplinary approach provides completeness to the book that makes it more than memoir.

We may not have eradicated all of the stubborn philosophies about physically challenged individuals, American society has greatly enhanced since the 1920s. More of us understand the diversity in each other, and that many conditions affect people differently. The Polio Journals brightens that path of progress and sheds light on how far there is yet to travel. I highly recommend this read, and I look forward to gaining more insight into the eyes of

disability.