MANCHESTER, NH — Like most teens in the summer of 1953, Adele Boufford Baker was enjoying her time off from school, much of which was spent swimming with friends on the West Bank of the Merrimack River where her family had a summer home. Adele found the waters a welcome respite from the summer heat. Little did anyone know what dangers those waters carried.
“I was having a great summer,” she recalls. “Then one morning, I woke up, tried to get out of bed and fell to the floor. I literally couldn’t walk.”
Adele’s parents rushed her to the hospital and after a series of tests, she was diagnosed with Polio also known as Infantile Paralysis or Poliomyelitis. “We certainly were aware of the disease,” she says. “We knew other families impacted by it, even some who had to be put into an iron lung to help them breathe. It was a scary time.”
In Adele’s case, she would need surgery to graft the Achilles tendon to help her walk again. She was also put into a full leg cast for nine weeks, had to walk on crutches and could not put any weight on her foot while she recovered. “I literally had to learn to walk all over again,” she said. While largely recovered, Adele still experiences some issues with her foot to this day, but considers herself fortunate. “I was luckier than many who got Polio, I didn’t actually have to wear braces on my legs. And then the vaccine from Dr. Salk was introduced.”
Dr. Jonas Salk had been working on a vaccine for Polio, developing it in 1952 and testing it over the next two years. After some fits and starts, the vaccine was widely introduced in the late 1950s and soon the dreaded childhood disease — in the United States at least — was largely eradicated.
Adele went on to complete high school and college, raise a family, and become active in business in Manchester. Now retired, she also served for many years as Executive Director of the Franco-American Centre in downtown Manchester. In 1996, she was invited to attend a local rotary club (now the Queen City Rotary Club) meeting by her friend Richard Charpentier. “I was attracted by the people and the cause,” she said. “And when I found out that one of the objectives of Rotary was to eliminate Polio across the world, I felt as though I had come full circle.”
In 2019, Rotary International recognizes 30 years of fighting Polio worldwide. While largely eliminated in the United States, the disease has persisted across the world and in 1979, the club became a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Thanks to the generous support of Rotaries throughout the world, Polio cases have been reduced by 99.9 percent. Over the past three decades, the effort has helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries and Rotary has contributed nearly 2 billion dollars toward eradicating the dreaded disease worldwide.
While many steps have been made, Polio remains endemic in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. “It is vital we eliminate all polio Cases,” said Adele. “This is personal to me.”
At the Queen City Rotary Club, Adele participates in a broad range of causes and community service and co-chairs the club’s program committee. “I’ve been part of this club for 23 years and enjoyed every minute of it,” she says.
In recognition of World Polio Day on Thursday, October 24, the Queen City Rotary Club will make a donation in support of the polio eradication program. “Our daily mission is to support kids in need, locally as well as globally,” concluded Adele. “I can’t think of a better way to recognize this important day.”
To learn more about the Queen City Rotary Club, please visit www.queencityrotary.org
