When Ray Hilfiker was 10 years old, he was diagnosed with polio. Now 73 and living in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, he shared his story with sixth graders at a local middle school. Even at a young age, he said he was fearful of passing the illness on to his relatives, so he opted to write them letters from the hospital ward, which he shared with 10 other boys. Many of the students had never heard of polio, and listening to Hilfiker’s story was their first encounter with the illness. The last confirmed case of polio in the United States happened nearly a decade ago.

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