On a Sunny spring morning in 1975, Rena and her sister, Bob, were burning old letters and other mementoes untouched since their mother's death a few years earlier. Suddenly Bob gasped and the box of letters slipped from her lap to the foot of her wheel chair. She held out a letter. "Read this. They knew. They knew before I came home from the Neurological that I'd never walk!"

The letter from Dr. Wilder Penfield of the Montreal Neurological Institute, dated November 1937, was addressed to their father, Roy C. McLean of Souris, Prince Edward Island, and read in part as follows: "Quite frankly I cannot hold out hope that Bob will ever walk. I am afraid we must look forward to a life of invalidism. She has kept her sunny disposition in an extraordinary way. She never seems to be down in the mouth and at no time, as far as I can see, has she been unhappy except early on...'

The "early on" probably referred to the heart-broken thirteen-year-old girl who sobbed bitterly when the nurses had to shave off her dark brown hair for the seven-hour peration. No one seems to know how a chubby, affectionate child, who called every one "dearie" got a boy's name. There were already three daughters when, at the birth of the next child, Dr. Augustus MacDonald whispered to the attending nurse: "If this is another girl, you'll have to tell Roy. I can't." Perhaps, in a moment of wishful thinking, the father gave the baby her nickname. A son was born later but, in the meantime, the four girls, as if to make up for being girls, became tomboys. Bob, at thirteen, loved activity of any kind - swimming, bicycling, skating and hockey where she played left wing on the girls' team.

The first Saturday in September 1937 dawned warm and sparkling, a final perfect summer's day. The school children crowded the shores for one more dip in the ocean. The tide was high. The water, red and choppy, rose almost to the edge of the factory wharf where Bob and her friends laughed and played the morning away. A favorite boys' game: splash the girls with icy water from a nearby spring.

"Watch out Bob!"

"I'm going to get wet, anyway." And over the side she dove without looking. The tide, by now, had receded leaving three feet of water where earlier there had been seven. The fun and games continued. But Bob knew something was wrong. She tried to get her feet on bottom but it was impossible. She tried to yell but got a mouthful of water. Someone on the wharf emarked that Bob was doing the "jelly- fish roll" and a few came to watch. Others, sensing that something was wrong, jumped over and pulled her to the sandy beach nearby.

"I don't have any legs..."

"Yes, you do. Look Bob." And they lifted them for her to see.

"I can't feel them. Pinch me."

The noise and laughter on the wharf ceased and everyone crowded around in bewilderment. It was decided to carry her up the incline and along the single footpath, between the factory and the cliff, that led to the wharf. Not far, but Bob weighed 127 pounds and the path was narrow and awkward. Jim Brierley, a Montreal lawyer, visiting the family at the time, was one of the first adults on the scene. He recognized the spinal injury immediately and prevented further unnecessary movement.

Monday, with neck collar and strapped to a board, Bob made the 800-mile train trip to Montreal. The operation that followed stabilized the dislocated sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae. When her head struck sea bottom, these bones had crushed the spinal cord causing irreparable damage. She was left with complete paralysis of the trunk and legs and almost complete paralysis of the upper extremities. She is able to flex her arms but not extend them, flex her wrists but not extend them. She also lost all movement in her fingers. The medical term for a person with all four limbs affected is quadreplecia. Bob is a quadreplegic. Bob remained at the Neurological Institute for four months. At first, she lay on her back, head suspended by ice tongs through her skull, and supported by sandbags on either side. She had, of course, very little feeling from her neck down.

Later, the ice tongs were removed and physiotherapy treatment began: massage and arm and finger exercises. Being able to pick up a peanut from the bedcovers was a big achievement. Daily Dr. Penfield called to observe progress and check for movement of the toes. "Wiggle your toes," became the watchword. Bob still had to be fed but learned to clasp a pencil between thumb and first finger, pull it to the right height with her teeth and write home, using the freehand wrist movement taught in the Island schools at that time. It was impossible, however with her handicap to answer the hundreds of letters that poured in from her friends.

At home in Souris, the letter from Dr. Penfield had been read by her parents many times, searching, searching. One line: "There is some preservation of the spinal cord and some messages going down" gave them a ray of hope. The letter was carefully hidden away and Bob's parents, Roy and Dellie, made their pact. No one would ever know its contents. They prayed for guidance, turned their faces to the light and never looked back. It was not easy.

On December 22, when Roy met the train in Sackville, New Brunswick, he was shocked to find his daughter 90 pounds of skin and bones, her long fingers curled into her palms, the muscles of her arms and legs wasted away, her head covered with a mere whisker of hair. The feel of her tiny arms around his neck almost overcame him but he could feel the energy in those arms and there was courage and confidence in her merry smile. As he travelled with her on the train to Souris, he wondered how he could prepare his wife for the change in their liveliest tomboy. He needn't have worried. If Dellie was heavy-hearted, her family never knew, then, nor during the 30 years that followed. She was sustained by a deep faith, a warm sense of humor and a joy in the small blessings of life. The doors of the old Victorian house were always open. Bob and her wheel chair went with her young friends everywhere: movies, ball games, church and dances. For this was part of her parents' plan: life for Bob was to be as normal as was possible. In this attitude, they were decades ahead of their time.

In 1939 Bob entered the Children's Memorial Hospital in Montreal for whirlpool bath treatments. Toward the her eight months' stay there, Dr. Penfield came to see her. He remarked on the excellent care she had had. Before he left, Bob asked, "When will I walk, Doctor?"

He leaned down, kissed her and said: "Not this winter." Bob was 15 then. When she was 34, she got another kiss when the doctor recognized her at a lecture he gave to the students of Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown. As he leaned over her, he said, "Twenty-one years ago!" and seemed amazed :hat she had been able to come the 50 miles to hear him and would return that night. She was proud to present him with a set of her own handwoven place mats. For eight years after her return from he Children's Memorial, Bob continued he water treatments in a six-foot, in-lined tank in her room. But in spite Jf the various walkers constructed by her father to help her exercise, the toes did not wiggle, the legs did not walk.

It was 1946. The war was over and Rena joined the nursing staff of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, where she saw the rehabilitation work being done by a young ex-service man, Dr. Gustave Gingras. His goal for his patients, as he states in his book, Feet Was I to the Lame, was to make them "active, productive, self-sufficient 'citizens." Rena persuaded her parents to send Bob there in 1947 when civilians were being accepted for treatment.

Bob returned home after nine months. Her parents were overwhelmed with her independence. She insisted on sleeping alone in her room at night, attending to her needs herself. She operated a small handcraft shop beside her home, selling the weaving and shell jewelry that she made.

Bob is 54 now. She and her companion, Ginny Hoey, live in the old home. At 78, Dellie reluctantly gave up full care of Bob. "It'll be the end of me if I give up," she said. And it seemed to be true. Her parents are both gone now. Bob can't move out as readily as she once did so her friends hold most of their meetings in her home - TOPS, UCW and Bible Class.

In 1973 Bob wrote about 150 letters by hand to former congregation members requesting funds for renovation of Souris United Church. Response was tremendous-over $4,000 collected. She then wrote receipts and thank-you notes.

When Bob had her accident, penicillin had not been discovered, the word, "rehabilitation" did not apply to the disabled; the physically handicapped were kept in the background.

How did it happen that these two in a small town in eastern Prince Edward Island decided that, for their little quadreplegic, things would be different?

They would scoff at such words as "sacrifice" and "devotion" and yet they are true. But so were the rewards: for them a happy home, filled with love, laughter and activity; for Bob, a life of independence and an opportunity to do a great deal more for society than many with all their normal faculties.

Copyright
Waldron H. Leard