March–April 1945
When they moved us to Charlotte, there was more dignitaries making speeches and getting their pictures taken than you could shake a stick at. And Momma was there too. She helped me pack up my belongings. We hung on to each other and I promised I would work hard and get out of that Charlotte hospital quick as I could.
I was one of the first people out of the building. They moved the ones in wheelchairs first. I begged Nurse Amanda to put me in a car with Imogene.
“Young lady,” she said, “what you’re asking for—it just isn’t natural.”
The hospital grounds was covered with police, firemen, and all sorts of bigwigs. Not to mention a line of black cars stretched out past the main highway. I kept trying to see Imogene through the crowd, but there was too much commotion. And I figured the coloreds would be the last ones out.
When it was time to go, Momma give me one last squeeze and Nurse Amanda pushed my chair to the door of a shiny black car. She told the volunteers to put me in the back seat. “No,” I said. “I’m waiting on Imogene. Where is she?”
But Amanda just shook her head and grumbled something about white people sticking with their own kind. And the next thing I knew, a fireman was lifting me into the car.
I about jumped out of my skin when I heard a voice beside me. “It’s about time you gets yourself in this car.”
“Imogene!” I screamed. “You’re done already here!” I grabbed her hand, and we laughed so hard I forgot to say thank you to the fireman. Then my door got shut and it was just the two of us there in the back seat. “How did you get here?” I asked. And then I seen a white face up behind Imogene’s black one. It was Nurse Amanda peeking in the car window. I thought her cheeks was going to split wide open from that smile on her face. But I seen tears in her eyes too.
“Nurse Amanda say this her goodbye present to me and you,” Imogene explained.
Nurse Amanda waved and disappeared. She had more patients to load into cars.
The driver was a gentleman who introduced himself as Mr. Barger. His wife must’ve been out talking to some friends. She got into the car just when it was time for him to move forward so another car could load up. Mrs. Barger’s mouth fell open when she seen Imogene in her car. Her husband said, “It’s all right, dear. She’s here by special arrangement.”
“Oh,” said the woman, and that was the end of that.
At first we moved real slow out of the hospital grounds. When I seen all the nurses and Miss Ruth waving out the hospital windows, the tears started running. I felt like I was leaving my home and family. And Momma was gonna be so far away and probably couldn’t visit again.
They said the line of cars taking us to Charlotte was a mile long. Every little town we went through, the cars all blew their horns. Ambulances and police cars turned on their sirens so the people of the towns would see us coming.
Me and Imogene held hands and talked about the Charlotte hospital. “Probably it’s fancy,” I said. “But I’d rather be back in that tent they had us in at first.”
“A tent is fine by me if you in it,” said Imogene.
“You know they’re gonna split us like a piece of firewood,” I said.
And I was right, too. When we got to Charlotte, some orderlies brought wheelchairs. One orderly stopped dead in his tracks when he seen Imogene.
“Whoa!” he said. “Something’s not right.” He looked at Imogene. “Missy, you’re in the wrong place for sure.”
Him and the driver had a conversation about how they was going to get her to the colored ward. Finally the driver said he would push her there in one of the wheelchairs and his wife could drive the car when the line got to moving again.
I give Imogene a big hug.
“Write to me, dishrag,” said Imogene.
“Yes, mophead,” I said. “But who’s going to deliver our letters?”
“We’ll find someone,” said Imogene.
Then the orderly was helping me out of the car, and the driver was helping Imogene into her chair on the other side. The last I seen of her was through the two back doors of that car. I had a feeling like I would never see Imogene Wilfong again.
The Charlotte hospital was good and bad. The good part was they had lots of fun things to do. A circus come to perform just for us polio patients. And Danny Moury’s daddy come and showed us some moving pictures he took with his little movie camera of the “Miracle of Hickory” hospital. It didn’t have a real movie star talking on it like the one the Hollywood people made. In fact, it didn’t have no talking at all. But I liked it on account of I had got to know Danny’s momma and daddy on visiting days. Danny was a little boy who come to the emergency hospital about the same time I did.
The hospital wasn’t fancy like I expected. Well, I reckon parts of it might have been. But not the polio ward. It was built for the epidemic, like the Hickory hospital, but it wasn’t as good as ours by a long shot.
There was only one bathroom for the whole ward full of us girls. Which meant it was busy all the time. The nurses would take the bedpans from the girls and line them up outside the bathroom door, waiting for the orderlies to come and empty them and spray them out. So it smelled pretty awful sometimes, especially on hot days. And it was starting to get hot already.
But the worst part about being in Charlotte was how lonely I felt. Momma wrote Daddy about me moving, so after a while I started getting some letters from him at the Charlotte hospital. I had wrote to him about maybe going to Warm Springs. At first I thought he might not believe me. But he wrote me right back and I knew that just like he always said, Daddy believed I could do whatever I put my mind to.
Dear Ann Fay,
If anybody deserves to see the president it’s you for sure. If he knew all you have done to take care of your family he would give you a medal. Keep working hard and you will make it to Warm Springs. It does my heart good to hear about the progress you’re making.
We are making progress here too. I hope and pray it won’t be much longer.
All my love,
Daddy
My daddy saying it, helped me to believe it. But first, I just wanted to go home for a while.
It was spring now and I was thinking how a year ago I was planting my daddy’s garden. I felt bad because my momma was taking care of the girls and making the garden too. I wanted to help her. I missed the smell of the crumbly red dirt and the feel of it damp between my toes.
One night I dreamed I was in the garden. Just when I yanked the pull start on the tiller, Junior Bledsoe come and took the tiller away from me. He pointed to my legs, and I seen that they was all shriveled up to two thin sticks that wouldn’t even bend.
“Ann Fay Honeycutt,” he said. “You couldn’t run a tiller when you had two good legs. How do you expect to do it with them sticks?” He made me so mad I started kicking my legs and throwing a temper tantrum.
And then I woke up and I really was kicking my legs and I could feel that my left knee—my weak one—had even moved a little.
That’s when I knew I would be walking soon.
When they brought my breakfast, I said I didn’t want to eat. I just wanted to see my physio. But of course I had to wait till it suited her.
While I was waiting, I got in my wheelchair and went to the bathroom. I held my breath going past all them bedpans lined up in the hall.
I was just about finished doing my business when the door opened and a colored orderly walked in with a bedpan. I was so shocked I just about fell in that toilet. And I was so embarrassed I wished he would just flush me right down.
But I think he was more embarrassed than me, even. He backed out of there with his eyes closed and said, “Excuse me, miss. Excuse me for true. I didn’t know you was in here.”
When he shut that door, I prayed he wouldn’t never have to come back on my ward again, because I didn’t think I could look him in the eye. But I knew he would. He was there every day whistling one of them Negro songs Imogene sometimes like to sing.
I finished up and got back in my chair and opened the door. I kept my eyes on the floor all the way back to the ward, but I had a feeling he was hiding from me too, because I didn’t see no man’s shoes along the way. And I for sure didn’t hear no whistling.
I sat in the wheelchair by my bed and waited for my physio.
In Charlotte, my physio was Miss Jane. She had the same pretty brown eyes as Miss Ruth, but they didn’t have the same sparkle and she wasn’t as talkative as Miss Ruth. Still, I thought she would be excited to see me bending my knee.
She seen I was determined and started working real hard with me. I didn’t tell her I was going to Warm Springs for more therapy, and I for sure didn’t mention seeing the president—she’d think I was imagining things. Sometimes I thought so myself, but I never stopped thinking about it. I started improving fast. My left knee was still stiff, but I knew I could make it bend more if I just kept talking to it.
I asked Miss Jane did she know a patient named Imogene Wilfong who come from Hickory.
“No,” she said. “We don’t have any patients by that name.” “She’s in the colored ward.”
Miss Jane didn’t say nothing at first. Then she said, “I don’t work in the colored ward. The coloreds are in tents outside the hospital.”
That made me mad. “Tents?” I said. “Tents is what they had in Hickory at the worst part of the epidemic. Tents is supposed to be for temporary. And y’all went and put the coloreds in a tent? How do they stay warm on cold nights?”
“Well, these tents are for temporary,” said Miss Jane. “We’re in the same epidemic Hickory had. And the weather is getting warmer, so don’t worry your pretty head over a few coloreds.”
“If Charlotte couldn’t do no better by coloreds than putting them in a tent, then why did they shut down our Hickory hospital? That place was a pure miracle.”
Miss Jane tugged on my leg and said, “I know all about your ‘Miracle of Hickory.’ It’s been in all the magazines. And the movies even. But I didn’t shut it down.”
“Well,” I said, “I know it ain’t your fault, but could you do me a big favor?”
Miss Jane didn’t make me no promises. She just waited for me to ask.
“Imogene Wilfong is my friend,” I said. “I wrote her a letter. Would you take it to her for me? And get one from her too, on account of I know she wrote me.”
Miss Jane started shaking her head before I even finished. “I never go to the colored ward,” she said. “They got their own help over there.”
I begged and pleaded and promised to work hard and get out of there real fast if she did. But all my begging didn’t do me one bit of good. Miss Jane just shook her head.
I knew I was going to have to find another way to get to Imogene.