In an essay, Irishwoman Eva Kelly recalls her childhood growing up in Cork, Ireland during the 1950s and the struggles she and her community faced during a polio outbreak. In 1956, her parents moved her to Kilkenny for safety, but when she returned a year later, she found that many of her classmates had contracted the debilitating illness and were living in the local sanitarium. Despite the possibly of contraction, Kelly and her parents would visit friends and family regularly, and in her essay she discusses seeing them in various states of disability and how the experience changed her as a person.

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