Ronhovde Family Shares Polio Survival Story

Ronhovde Family Shares Polio Survival Story

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Earline Ronhovde first suspected she had polio in the summer of 1953. “I tried to drink some water and it came out my nose,” the Fremont woman said. “I couldn’t swallow.” Her suspicions proved correct, and she was diagnosed with poliomyelitis, a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. Ronhovde’s children, Larry and Jill, were later diagnosed with the disease as well. Jill would spend time in a cylindrical metal machine called an iron lung. Decades later, the World Health Organization reported that polio cases have decreased by 99 percent since 1988. But just as people today worry about the coronavirus, many who lived during the early part of the 20th century feared polio.

Read more in this story from the Fremont Tribune.