Reviews: Walking Isn't Everything: An Account of the Life of Jean Denecke

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Walking Isn't Everything [ebook]
[9781591462019]

$12.95

Displaying 1 to 5 (of 5 reviews)

Result Pages: 1

by Daniel J. Wilson

Date Added: Sunday 15 August, 2010

An Ordinary Life with Polio

Jean Denecke’s account of her encounter with polio and her subsequent life dealing with permanent disabilities emphasizes the ordinariness of her experiences. As she puts it, “except for my physical condition, I feel that I lead a perfectly normal life” (p. 16). Denecke wrote the book in the mid-1950s, approximately eight years after contracting polio in 1946 when she was twenty-nine. Denecke died in 1969 and the memoir is edited by her daughter Kris Gruenawald and nephew Keith Story. The editors do not explain the extent of their editing, but the text appears to be the one Denecke wrote in the early 1950s. She submitted it to several publishers, but she did not made the suggested revisions and it remained unpublished.

Denecke begins her memoir by recounting the onset of polio and her trip to the hospital Once in the hospital, she found it increasingly difficult to breathe and was eventually placed in an iron lung. Unlike many polio narratives that emphasize the fear and anxiety about iron lungs, Denecke seems not to have had a powerful psychological response to being placed in the device. Her straightforward account of the time spent in the iron lung and in the hospital lacks the drama of many polio narratives. Her time of difficulty came later. As she began to recover, she acknowledged her fears about the future, and admitted that at her lowest point psychologically she wanted to commit suicide. Denecke had even decided that she would accomplish the deed using rat poison that she would have her husband bring to the hospital. Although the psychological problems apparently persisted even after Denecke returned home, she provides few details about her feelings, or about how she resolved them and decided to get on with her life. She does credit a chiropractor, who came to her home to provide massage and therapy, with helping her overcome the psychological issues.

Much of the memoir describes her four-month stay at the polio rehabilitation facility at Warm Springs, Georgia. She credits the resort-like social atmosphere with helping to restore her desire and determination to live a good life. Equally important, the therapists, brace- and appliance-makers, and wheelchair specialists provided her with the ability to sit up, to use a wheelchair, and to use her hands with the aid of specially constructed slings. Among other things, the experience at Warm Springs helped her to come to terms with the reality that she would never walk again, and to be grateful for the things she could do.

In the account of her life at home, both before and after her return from Warm Springs, Denecke stresses the ways in which she and her family, especially her husband and her daughter, found ways to create something approaching a normal life. Although she acknowledges challenges and difficulties, the emphasis is always on what worked. Part of her purpose in writing the book was to show other polio survivors what it is possible to achieve with hard work, a willing family and friends, and some imagination. The difficulty of finding good, reliable help ranked high among the challenges Denecke and her family faced. Here and there in the narrative Denecke suggests some of the continuing psychological issues that she and the family faced, but at no time does she reveal much about their nature or how they were addressed. She credits Harry, her husband, with making it possible for her to live at home and be an effective wife and mother, but we get little sense of their relationship or of the burdens that Harry assumed when his wife contracted polio. The narrative ends with a short account of setting up an in-home business. Denecke established a baby-sitting registry in 1954 and ran it successfully and profitably until her death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1969. The book also includes an appendix with graphs on the occurrence of polio in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, the twentieth anniversary program brochure of Warm Springs, and a brief biography of Jean Denecke by her daughter.

Denecke’s Walking Isn’t Everything clearly belongs to what Amy Fairchild has called the first wave of polio narratives. These narratives, written in the forties and fifties, take a generally upbeat approach to the experience of polio and of living with a permanent disability. Even when they acknowledge difficulties, as Denecke does, these first-wave authors tend to stress overcoming them and living a relatively normal life under the circumstances. Fairchild also notes that these narratives are typically reticent about psychological issues for both survivor and family, about sexuality, and about relations between husband and wife or parents and children [1] Published in 2010, but written in the mid-1950s, Denecke’s book is a good example of a 1950s polio memoir. Denecke’s emphasis on the ordinariness of her extraordinary situation is a good reminder of a time when many polio survivors focused primarily on what they could do and on taking up once again the life interrupted by disease and disability.

Note

[1]. Amy L. Fairchild, “The Polio Narratives: Dialogues with FDR,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 75 (2001): 491-492.

Citation: Daniel J. Wilson. Review of Denecke, Jean, Walking Isn't Everything. H-Disability, H-Net Reviews. August, 2010.

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

by Teddi L. Benson

Date Added: Thursday 08 April, 2010

This book provides powerful historical perspective on the illness of polio, its diagnosis and ultimate treatment at a time when there were few supports and gender roles were strictly defined. This autobiographical memoir is a powerful statement on what a person can achieve if she puts her heart and soul into becoming her own person. It is full of insights on pain and healing (and discrimination) and reclaiming oneself in light of a change in the predictable course of life.

Denecke states that her one specific goal in writing about her experiences is to "inspire others to reclaim their lives after contracting polio." This thoughtful book provides insight into the personal and systemic barriers for people with disabilities in the 1940s as well as today. With assistance and support from her husband, Denecke raised her family, ran her household, and served as an inspiration to others who were devalued too. She retained her independent attitude, although she needed support in every single aspect of daily living. These issues are as relevant now as they were 50 years ago as we seek to promote the independence, normalization, and self-advocacy of persons with critical health care needs.

This book is of interest to many readers looking for an historical perspective of polio before the advent of polio vaccines. For polio survivors, the details will remind them of the challenges they faced and the bonds among those that shared similar experiences. Also this book serves as a valuable text for readers eager to learn about this condition called disability.

Reviewed by Teddi L. Benson, University of Wyoming
in "Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities"
(2008-2009, Vol. 33-4, No. 4-1, 271-272.)

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

by Midwest Book Review/Small Press Bookwatch

Date Added: Monday 01 June, 2009

Polio is essentially eradicated in the modern world, but what was it like to live with this plague of the first half of the twentieth century? "Walking Isn't Everything: An Account of the Life of Jean Denecke" is the story of one of the sufferers who faced this disease in the 1950s. In a time where there was much less government support, one woman overcame her polio-inflicted disability and led a very successful life where even walking-abled women struggled to succeed. An inspirational tale that gives insights to how much times have changed, "Walking Isn't Everything" is a fine read for biography, women's studies, and health readers.

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

by Laura Barbour

Date Added: Monday 01 December, 2008

This volume was written by Jean Denecke during her life and has been recently edited by Kris Guenawald, who is Jean's daughter and a Network member, and by Keith Storey, who is Jean's nephew. In her preface, Mrs. Denecke wrote: "Can you imagine yourself nonchalantly rolling down the sidewalk in a wheelchair, en route to a P.T.A. meeting at school? Well, [I] could not either, but that was five years ago, before polio -- before my wheelchair and I became one. This is my story. It is a story I cannot tell medically or psychologically, but I can relate it as an intimate personal experience."

Walking Isn't Everything includes the writer's story of her time at Warm Springs. In face, one of the introductions to this book was written by Martin Harmon, from the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. The other was written by Mary Lou Breslin, of the Disability Rights Education Defense Fund.

This book is a bit over 200 pages in length, and includes four appendices (Graphs on the Occurrence of Polio in the U.S.; 1947 Twentieth Annual Report, Georgia Warm Springs Foundation; 1955 White House Press Release Regarding Polio; and 1953 Newspaper Article on Jean Denecke). There is also a rather extensive bibliography of works related to polio.

Laura Barbour, Librarian
Michigan Polio Collection Library (MPNetwork)

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

by Patricia A. Ziegler

Date Added: Friday 28 November, 2008

A beautiful, healthy young wife and mother is stricken and completely paralyzed by a case of polio that leaves no part of her body unaffected. The year is 1947, eight years too early for the Salk vaccine that would have prevented this tragedy.

This first-person account describes in detail her reaction, progress, and how she gradually coped with the fact that, although she would slowly regain some limited use of her hands and arms, this lovely, spirited young woman would never walk again.

I think this book has an inspirational message of hope for anyone who is suddenly disabled due to accident or illness, as well as to those of us more fortunate. It is written with intelligence, and through it all, the feisty personality of the author shines through. I found it hard to put down, and would recommend it to anyone.

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]