Martha Mason became paralyzed from the neck down when she was 11 years old, as the result of polio. She spent the next 60 years living her life lying down in an iron lung, so she could breathe. She passed away last week, at the age of 71, in her hometown of Lattimore, North Carolina.
Mason chose to live in an iron lung, preferring it to tubes down her throat or hospital stays. She had teachers come to her home and she graduated first in her class in high school. She attended college at Wake Forest, participating in classes by intercom, and graduated first in her class as well. She spent then moved back home and wrote for a local paper, dictating to her mother, until her father became ill and her mother no longer had time.
She was well known in the community. She had friends over for dinner (she ate lying down) and people would come to visit before or after big events like weddings. The fire department would check up on her when the electricity went out, to make sure her backup generator worked.
Small town life was hard for such a smart woman, until Mason got a voice activated computer in the mid-1990s. For the first time, was able to really interact with the world. She wrote a book about her life in an iron lung that was published in 2003, called "Breathe." Her friend Mary Dalton, a professor at Wake Forest (the one sitting next to her in the picture below) directed a documentary about her in 2005 called "Martha In Lattimore." She was survived only by her two aides, who she considered family.
Mason chose to live in an iron lung, preferring it to tubes down her throat or hospital stays. She had teachers come to her home and she graduated first in her class in high school. She attended college at Wake Forest, participating in classes by intercom, and graduated first in her class as well. She spent then moved back home and wrote for a local paper, dictating to her mother, until her father became ill and her mother no longer had time.
She was well known in the community. She had friends over for dinner (she ate lying down) and people would come to visit before or after big events like weddings. The fire department would check up on her when the electricity went out, to make sure her backup generator worked.
Small town life was hard for such a smart woman, until Mason got a voice activated computer in the mid-1990s. For the first time, was able to really interact with the world. She wrote a book about her life in an iron lung that was published in 2003, called "Breathe." Her friend Mary Dalton, a professor at Wake Forest (the one sitting next to her in the picture below) directed a documentary about her in 2005 called "Martha In Lattimore." She was survived only by her two aides, who she considered family.
"My story's been one of joy, one of wonderful experiences," she said. "It has not been perfect. But that's what people need to understand -- that I have had a good life." She said that by the time were available, she had already established a lifestyle in an iron lung. Here is her NYTimes obituary and an ABC News article about her.
1 comment:
yawn... lol
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