Some of my memories
-- by Jack Gordon
My memories of Arthur and Marilynn Gordon start in 1952. We lived in a mobile home and then in an apartment in Winona Lake,
Indiana while Dad was in school at Grace College and Grace Theological Seminary.
We moved to a small church
parsonage northeast of Winona Lake where Dad was the pastor while he
finished seminary. The church was
visible just a few hundred feet down the road.
There were cement steps and a large cement landing leading to the front
door of the church. There was a gravel parking lot and there was a cemetery
beside and behind the church.
I remember that Dad would go
hunting behind the house. He took apart
a player piano someone had given us and removed all the player parts to make it
a little lighter in weight and he saved every little screw. Dad and Mom would rake the yard
together. They would play with Jim,
Joyce and me in the fenced in yard in front of the house.
We had a small dog and a cat. As
I rode my bike down the road to the church, Dad would run beside me. During a trip back to Pennsylvania to visit
Dad’s parents and friends, Dad played baseball while our Grandmother, our Mom,
Jim, Joyce and I sat in the car and watched.
Our Grandfather umpired the game.
One time Dad was to preach at
another church in the evening. We were
all in the car and it was storming and raining very hard. Suddenly Dad slammed on the brakes and we
stopped just short of a rain swollen river.
Needless to say, I had been standing on the back seat and landed pretty
hard against the back of the front seat.
I remember sitting in church on a
Sunday morning with Mom while Dad was preaching. After church I told Mom that I wanted to get
saved. Dad and I got down on our knees
by the couch and I asked Jesus to come into my heart.
We moved to Williamsburg,
Ohio. The first house we lived in was an
old two story. I rode my bike into town by myself. Someone saw me on the street and must have called Dad. Dad and Mom must have been scared. Dad took me home and immediately took the wheels off my bike. The second was a small
ranch house that we moved into in May 1955.
Dad was the first pastor for a new Baptist Church that was just starting
up and he also worked in the maintenance department at a local company. I remember Dad taking me with him when he
visited people in the community.
I was looking forward to starting
first grade in the fall of 1955. Before
I could start school I woke up one morning and had trouble breathing and
swallowing. I had trouble moving my arms and
legs. Dad carried me to the car and
drove Joyce and me to the hospital. Joyce had trouble moving her arm. I was put in
an iron lung but it would not work correctly.
It was made for an adult and my neck was too small for the opening. They tried to stuff towels in the opening but
that did not hold a seal tight enough to produce the pressure needed to make me
breathe. Fortunately, I could breathe a
little and it wasn’t long before I recovered more of my ability to breathe. They said I was in critical condition. I was in the contagious unit.
Joyce also had polio and was hospitalized in serious condition.
Joyce and I were placed in
the same room.
In a few days Mom told me that
Dad was also in the hospital and that our Grandmother and our Aunt, both from
Ohio, were taking care of Jim at our home.
That was scary for them to be in the house where we lived when we got
polio.
In a few days I got back more of the strength
in my left arm and left leg but my right arm and right leg were still very weak.
The doctors and nurses had to insert a tube down my nose and into my stomach to
feed me since I could not swallow. I
fought this. It took several people to
hold me down for this procedure.
Eventually they gave up and let me try to swallow and I slowly recovered
more of my ability to swallow.
After Dad had been in the
hospital for a week or so in his iron lung, Mom took me in a wheelchair to visit
him. It was strange. All I could see of him was his head sticking
out of the iron lung. He had trouble
talking because he could only say something as the iron lung forced the air out
of his lungs. After a few weeks Dad was
moved from the iron lung and was given a large chest mounted respirator to help
him breathe during the day and a rocking bed to use at night. He was moved to a wheelchair for
part of the day and sometimes was moved to the sun room at the end of the hall. Sometimes Mom took Joyce and me to the sun
room while Dad was there so we could be together.
Our Dad who played baseball, who
went hunting, who ran beside me on my bike, who knelt and prayed with me, and
who preached from the pulpit was now paralyzed from the neck down and could not
even breathe on his own. It was a
confusing time.
It seemed like I was in the
hospital a long time but it was only a few weeks. Joyce and I were then transferred to a
convalescent home. Jim, Joyce and I
didn’t see Dad again for about a year.
Mom visited us once a week. She
would pick up Joyce then pick me up and take us to a gymnasium in the building where
she would give us ice cream bars and talk with us. Joyce went home after a while and Mom came to
see me without her. I was in a large
room with about 15 boys of varying ages and various physical problems. Against the foot of my bed they placed a
board with shoes nailed to the board.
For several hours each day my feet were placed in the shoes so I could
not move. This was how they thought they
would help the weakness in my legs. I
started first grade in the convalescent home.
I was released for Christmas 1955
and went home. Now we were all there
except for Dad. Dad was transferred to a different hospital in January 1956. I finished the last half of first and all of
second grade in the elementary school across the street. I had to wear a brace on my right leg.
Our Grandparents from
Pennsylvania visited and we were all going to visit Dad in the hospital. Mom had a chocolate pie which was Dad’s
favorite. Someone ran a stop sign and
our car was hit from the side. This ruined
the pie. Mom was so disappointed but we continued on to see Dad.
Visiting Dad after the accident. Mom is taking the picture.
Dad learned to frog-breathe for
short periods by forcing air down into his lungs with a swallowing-like
movement. He was released and came back to our home in Williamsburg in early 1957. During the day he used a respirator
that was wrapped around his upper body under his shirt to breathe (it inflated and deflated)
and at night he used a bed that rocked (head up and feet down then head down
and feet up) this forced his diaphragm to move to make him breathe.
Dad at home in Williamsburg
In the summer of 1957 our Grandparents
came from Pennsylvania again and brought a van-like truck with windows up high
on the sides so Dad could see out while sitting in his wheelchair. Dad called them ears. The electrical system was also modified so
Dad’s respirator could run while traveling.
The truck was modified by our Grandfather. With this vehicle our Dad was transported to Pennsylvania. Mom’s brothers brought Dad’s rocking bed,
hydraulic lift and our belongings in a truck at the same time.
Truck with ears
Our Grandfather had added 3 rooms
onto his house where we could stay. He
must have started building as soon as he heard that Dad got polio. Our Grandparents moved into the upstairs so
we could live downstairs.
We settled into our new lives. Dad and Mom were amazing. Through it all they trusted the Lord without
knowing that He would lead them to develop a monthly devotional paper for shut-ins that
they called TRIUMPH with which they would initially send God’s Word into 800
homes and ultimately into over 5000 homes world-wide each month for over 24 years. Dad also wrote magazine articles,
tracts, and a weekly newspaper article.
He was called the Polio Pastor. From the beginning they always believed God’s promises that He would lead them and that He would take
care of them. And He did!!!
