2020 COVID-19 and 1946 Polio epidemic

Memories Of An 80 Year Old

2020 COVID-19 and 1946 Polio epidemic

By Lee Meyer

In the fall of 1945 my father decided to quit farming near Sanborn, MN, and purchased a business in Lamberton, MN.

My father’s new business consisted of Our Own Hardware store, Dodge and Plymouth cars, Allis-Chalmers, Minneapolis Moline, and Minnesota brand farm equipment.

The Minnesota brand farm machinery was manufactured at the Stillwater Prison by inmates.

For me this was a great move. Living in Lamberton, MN, A 9 year old with a bike.

In the spring of 1946 I was on my bike every morning and sometimes didn’t come home until after dark.

As the father of seven, I can’t believe how I would react if one of my kids was completely gone every day.

A group of us boys in Lamberton found many things to keep us occupied all day.  Usually we would end up eating when one of the mother’s would say, “You guys come in here now and get something to eat.”

We would always eat, and we always were aware which family had ice cream in the freezer compartment of their refrigerator.

We usually rode our bikes all over Lamberton and sometimes played baseball or football when we had enough for a game.

I never remember ever playing basketball.

However, since we were young boys, we did sometimes get into activities that would have driven our parents out of their minds.

Our favorite negative activity, was also very dangerous, however at 9 years old, “What did we know?”

About one mile north of Lamberton is a small river, or creek, that had a dam to control the flow of water.

We would ride our bikes down a long hill on the road north of Lamberton, to this water adventure place.

The dam was about 18 inches wide on top, with about one inch of water running over the dam. The water on one side was probably 10 to 12 feet deep, and on the other side of the dam it was about 8 feet to rocks where the flowing water would be bouncing off.

We young dumb nine year old boys would take turns walking across this dam, which was at least 25 to 30 feet long.

Another important fact: none of us could swim!

I know, some of you reading this will say, “I am not surprised. Taking chances by Lee would not surprise me at all!”

Lamberton had a new theater which was a real bargain for us youngsters. Movies always had a serial film prior to the feature movie. These serial films would show 8 to 10 minutes before the feature movie. These serial movies would go on for many weeks, which was a real customer draw.

Each episode of serial movies always ended with a dramatic problem for the hero of the movie. Usually most of us would talk between movie visits on how the hero was going to get out of this last problem.

Movie tickets for youngsters was 12 cents each.

We had a great summer until about the middle of July, when the Polio epidemic became much of a worry for our parents, so our daily bike riding came to a halt. No more getting together with friends for all-day activities.

From the middle of July I never was allowed to leave our home lot for anything.

I did get to mow the lawn, which was at least something to do.

With all this time with very little to do, always being grounded to our home lot in Lamberton, I did have one single good experience.

My father loved to play the card game Cribbage. Cribbage is a card game played by keeping score on a cribbage board.

With all this time, with little to do, my father taught me the card game of cribbage.

Over the 63 years from 1946 until my father reached the age of 102½, we played thousands of games of cribbage.

When my father reached the age of 101 years, we moved my father to DeGraff, MN, where he lived for half a year in a building we have on our property, which was one time the office of the DeGrafr Lumber Company. After we added that property, we remodeled the building and called it The Meyer Bunkhouse.

The last half year my father was a resident of Meadow Lane Nursing Home in Benson, MN.

While my dad lived in our Bunkhouse, either myself or my wife Phyllis was with my father, and my time with my dad was usually playing cribbage. After my dad moved to Meadow Lane Nursing Home we continued to play cribbage. Sometimes we played three sessions a day, morning, afternoon and evening.

I printed a page in my computer after every days games, listing who won games, highlights of different games, and a running record of how many games each of us won.

I printed a copy of each days cribbage games and put them in a 3-ring binder for my dad to show others when he had a visitor.

The last year of my dad’s life we played a total of 982 games of cribbage, and my father ended up two games ahead of me.

Cribbage is a counting game, and my dad’s mind was 100%, however his legs were gone and he was in a wheelchair.

I believe the card game of cribbage really helped my father’s memory and mind.

During the polio epidemic stores were open for business, Churches were always open for services on Sunday, however group activities were really at a stop.

One great Minnesota experience, the Minnesota State Fair was also cancelled in 1945 and 1946.

The Polio epidemic was my first experience with a major national health problem.

I do not remember hearing the word pandemic in 1946.

So now, advancing 74 years into 2020, our country is involved in another world-wide problem with this COVID-19 virus.

It might be the fact we now all have television, which brings worldwide news right into our homes, but we have facts and figures available to us almost too available.

COVID-19 now has attacked the entire world, and it seems to be a completely new virus, which the medical community is desperately trying to come up with a vaccine.

Not inserting anything political, it seems that most of the experts opinion goes from Hoax to a virus with no opinion on how to control its spread.

One thing we saw on television did not make any sense of responsibility, was watching the beaches of Florida totally crowed with college students during spring break.

We are all in hope that the medical experts will come up with a treatment that will put a stop to the spread of COVID-19.

Most of the people seem to be following the advice given by political leaders and most of the press. Keep a safe distance between people when in semi-close encounters. It is recommended a minimum of 6 feet between people.

In 2020 the population is comfortable with constant movement, always on the go and looking forward to being in groups, so staying home in complete isolation is hard on most of us.

Additional news to those of you who know my wife Phyllis, and also know she is magician with a sewing machine.

You will not be surprised Phyllis is making safety masks, which she is donating to our family, and to friends, Church, and whoever she can help.

Lee Meyer currently lives in DeGraff, Minnesota but has ties to the Morgan area. Some of his columns are based on his memories of Morgan and time spent there when he was young. You may contact Lee by email at: 2oldcrows@willmarnet.com