The Pageant

The year was 1954. December to be exact. I was in the eighth grade and living in Winnipeg, Canada.

The polio epidemic had eased up somewhat, but there were still a lot of children in the hospitals, many in iron lungs. One of those was in my Girl Guide troop. Her name was Joanne. I don’t remember her last name, but that doesn’t really matter. This is her story.

Joanne was one of the early victims of polio, and ended up sicker than most. She spent a good year in an iron lung before she was able to use just a respirator that was attached to her chest during the day. At night, she still needed to sleep in her "cocoon" as she called it. Once she was able to be outside the iron lung for any amount of time, her physical therapy started, and continued for a long time, years actually.

At the end of 1953 she was able to come back and visit our troop, instead of the other way around – us visiting her at home or in the hospital. She was in a wheel chair at first, still with a chest plate to help her breathe when she tired. But, she would come about every couple of weeks. Eventually she was fitted with leg braces. Big, cumbersome and heavy things back then. She still needed crutches to walk.

At the start of the 1954 troop year we decided to put on a Christmas pageant for the church. Joanne was still around, now without the chest plate, but still mostly in her wheelchair. She only had the energy to walk a short distance at a time.

A few months later, we were ready. We’d memorized our parts (I was a shepherd). There was the Nativity, complete with a live sheep (no live cows, though, or camels either). Joanne was one of the three kings, and she and the other two kings would come on stage last.

"We three kings of Orient are… " the organ started. The lights went down. The procession started at the back of the church. It wasn’t until the three kings had made it half way up the aisle that the audience realized what was happening, why the awed silence in back.

When they looked around they saw Joanne. Walking. Without her crutches. Holding just a staff, and singing and smiling through her own tears. She finally reached the first step up to the altar and the Nativity.

The audience stood up, and clapped.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the church.