Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 18, Number 10, DeMotte, Jasper County, 30 January 1948 — Have You Given To March of Dimes? [ARTICLE]

Have You Given To March of Dimes?

The most familiar childish features in the nation today belong to a sunny-haired three year old supported by steel leg braces who looks out from thousands of posters saying “Please Join the March of Dimes.” He is no figment of the imagination. The unenviable distinction of being chosen to lead for the 112,000 infantile paralysis victims since the March of Dimes started ten years ago, and the of new victims who will contract the disease in 1948, belongs to young Terry Tullos, son of an oil drilling equipment company employee of Laurel, Miss. Now wearing his fourth pair of steel braces, he was chosen because his case typified infantile paralysis, and because since he is recovering, he typifies what the March of Dimes is trying to do for other of its victims, of whom some 85 percent are child-

ren or minors. His case also typifies the terrifying sudden-ness with which polio strikes. He was less than a year old on Monday, October j 27, 1945, when he first showed his ! first signs of fever. On Wednes-i day, his left leg stiffened. On the following Monday, when he j entered the Polio Clinic at Jack-j son, Miss., he was crippled from the waist down. He will recover — -j in time. When he says “Please,” he means it. .Pol*» cripples financial- j ly as well as physicially. Hospitalization, per patient, costs about $2,500 a year. Few families can afford it. Half your dimes go to the. 2,735 local chapters of the Nation- ! al Fundation for Infantile Paral-. ysis for local use. Half goes to Foundation headquarters for research training of doctors and nurses, and for emergency funds: in epidemics, like that of 1946. j The goal for 1948 is S3O million. ! The March of Dimes drive will be over January 30. If you haven’t made your contribution yet do not; put it off any longer. Boxes in the local business places are for | that purpose. They were put! there for your convenience.