Susan Clough Wyatt

A "Polio" Finds His Way Susan Clough Wyatt

...a vivid and compelling multigenerational account of a father and daughter who endured life in the polio trenches. Rich with anecdotes and vivid historical detail...(about a man)...who fell victim to polio in 1909, years before the disease became a common concern in America....(this) insightful account...weaves together three historical pieces into one: polio autobiography, the early days of the SMU Mustang Band, and the nascent years of radio in Texas.
Heather Green Wooten, PhD, Author, The Polio Years in Texas: Battling A Terrifying Unknown



...a critical new dimension to the standard "polio story"...(that) weaves (an) account of...extraordinary resilience in the face of polio with the tale of how the scientific community came to understand, misunderstand, and ultimately conquer polio....
Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error

...a fascinating account of a polio survivor in the early 20th century... one of few...from these years...
Daniel J. Wilson, PhD, author of Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors

...a story to capture your heart....in exquisite detail... Wyatt (gives us)...a page-turner that will send shivers down your arm and put a lump in your throat....
--A. Lynn Ash, Author, The Route from Cultus Lake

Left a paraplegic at the age of four months, Forrest Clough grew up in an era when the country was immune to the needs of the disabled prior to the passage of the first disability rights legislation in 1968. Supported by a determined family, Clough succeeded as lead trumpet player in the 1930s with Southern Methodist University Band and had a 30-year career in the radio industry in Texas. Wyatt interweaves her father's story with the history of polio, President Franklin Roosevelt's push to develop vaccines, her own bout with non-paralytic polio in the 1952 epidemic, as well as today's worldwide polio eradication efforts. Wyatt shares her current experience with Post-Polio Syndrome as well as the positive and negative consequences of having grown up with a disabled father.