Roosevelt

Today marks the birthday of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man who is remembered for many things but for me and hundreds like me, who were given an early death sentence due to poliomyelitis and other childhood diseases, it is a day of saying a prayer of thanks to this man who gave us the will to “hang in there” when all others had given up on us.

I was told when I was 16 that I would not live beyond my 19th birthday. I am middle-aged now, still in pain but working every day thanks to the efforts of FDR’s Warm Springs Foundation.

Most young people today have no idea why his likeness is on the dime. Long before the March of Dimes came into being it was FDR who built the little hospital in Warm Springs, Ga. (mortgaging his own home at Hyde Park, N.Y., to do so) so children afflicted with polio might recover.

I remember that day in 1944 when he spoke to me and said, “You must make friends with the pain . . . set a goal for the future and go after it.” That is why Jan. 30 is so special to me.

DENNIS E. LESLIE

Tustin