REVISITING WARM SPRINGS: MAN RETURNS TO SITE OF POLIO TREATMENT AFTER 67 YEARS

CHAFFEE, Mo. -- Life is much different for Jim Stubbs today than when he made his first trip to Warm Springs, Ga., nearly 70 years ago.

For one thing, he can walk.

He uses a cane and wears a brace, but when he arrived at the rehabilitation center as a 6-year-old with polio, his only mode of transportation was a wheelchair.

Stubbs and his wife, Marlene, of Chaffee, returned to the Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation this week for a reunion of polio patients who spent time there. The reunion includes a speech by Anna Roosevelt, granddaughter of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt who founded the center. Events conclude Saturday.

The Warms Springs Institute now treats people with disabilities of all kinds from amputations to spinal cord injuries. But it's polio that put the place on the map.

In 1924, Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Warm Springs to find relief from his polio pain. He stayed at a resort that used hydrotherapy from spring waters. He was so impressed by the pools that he bought the resort and dedicated it to the treatment of polio.

Help from the first lady

In 1930, Jim Stubbs contracted polio, and no one is sure how. He was 3 years old. By the time he was 6, his mother decided to write to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for help.

A few months later, the first lady responded and said that Stubbs had been accepted into the program at Warm Springs. He arrived there in August 1933.

During the year he spent in Warm Springs, Stubbs received some kind of physical therapy nearly every day except Sunday. He would swim in the pools, get massages and practice range-of-motion exercises.

"We swam year-round," he said, recalling that the pools were enclosed in glass. There were about 50 children at Warm Springs during that time.

When the president would come to visit, he would swim with the children, who tried to dunk him under the water. Sometimes they played water polo or other games, Stubbs said.

During that time, he learned crafts like cross-stitch, embroidery, knitting, woodworking and leather working. "It was anything that would keep our hands busy," he said. He still has a cross-stitched wallet and a leather watchband he made while at Warm Springs.

The first poster kids

All the children at Warm Springs were in the same situation "We were all in bad shape," he said. But he was fast in the wheelchair and in the pool. "I developed strong upper body strength and that stayed with me."

During his stay at Warm Springs, Stubbs' photograph was taken with two other boys while the trio were holding puppies. Stubbs is the child on the far right. The print was used for a Birthday Bash party sponsored by the president. The Birthday Bashes were among some of the first fund-raising events held for polio research.

"We were probably the original poster kids for any group," Stubbs said. He plans to visit the other men, John Steinhower and George Moore, during this week's reunion.

"It'll be nice to go back after 67 years," he said.

During those 67 years, though, the world has changed.

"In 1933 I was a cripple.' In the 1940s I was handicapped' and then I was physically challenged,'" Stubbs said. "I'm the same as I was then without the brace."

Overcoming obstacles

Stubbs says he never felt sorry for himself. "That's because of my mother. I did anything I was big enough to do and a lot of things I shouldn't have done."

After he went back home to Chaffee, Stubbs would receive treatments at Shriner's Hospital. After age 15, he sometimes went to the hospital for outpatient care since he was too old to be admitted. He had numerous surgeries over the years, too.

He attended Chaffee schools but the two-story building posed a problem after he entered the upper elementary grades and high school. Classmates would help carry him upstairs to the classroom and then he'd slide down the bannisters to reach the ground level.

There weren't any disability acts or regulations then, so he just made do as best as he could.

Eventually he progressed from the wheelchair to two full-length braces and walked with help from crutches. Today he uses one brace and a cane. "I don't have any muscle in the leg so I wear a brace and you have to swing it from the hip" to make it move, Stubbs said. "I've been using a cane for years because I don't have any back muscles or balance and the cane gives me that."

Learn a little more

Today doctors know that polio is a virus spread by entering the intestinal tract, but in 1930 people didn't know how the disease spread or what caused it.

Over the years, Stubbs has been interviewed for magazine articles, news stories and even a few school reports and projects. He doesn't mind the attention because it might help someone else learn more about his disease.

"It's best to learn a little more," he said.

Today, there are few instances of polio in the United States thanks to a vaccine, but cases are still being confirmed in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean. The World Health Organization said that the global network of labs that track the disease reported no new polio cases in 2000.

But the disease hasn't vanished. "People are complacent," Stubbs said. "It's still out there."