On November 1932, Ruth Dunn, a pretty 26-year-old physical therapist, rode the Pickwick Stages from Los Angeles to Humboldt County to assume her duties as a therapist with the county. She recalls her excitement coming into the redwood country and seeing the big sign announcing the Humboldt County line. Since then her role in the county has been that of an angel for many generations of crippled children who, even in their late adulthood, still recall her smile and skillful hands, and many keep in touch with her, attributing their successful and active lives to her patience and professional dedication.

It was Tony Costa, one of Ruth’s crippled children and now a grandfather, who suggested this article be written, bringing attention to Ruth’s contribution to Humboldt County health care.

Runn Dunn. Photos via the Humboldt Historian.

Ruth, one of a family of six, always loved children. She was among the first class to graduate from Highland Hospital in Oakland. A few years later, she registered in Los Angeles and was called as a private nurse to the Malibu beach house of George Olsen, a band leader, and his wife, Ethel Shutta, a follies dancer, to care for their child. She was driven by their chauffeur when the child was scheduled to visit his pediatrician.

Life at Malibu was colorful because the Olsens were involved in making the movie “Whoopee,” and Ruth’s room was next door to that of houseguests Eddie Cantor, the star of the show, and his wife Ida. She thought them both charming. Weekends she observed the movie crowds socializing from one house to the next along the beach. She preferred playing cards with the chauffeur and his wife.

The child’s pediatrician, Rothman, suggested Ruth learn physical therapy and teach posture at a private girls’ school, a job that seemed far too dull for Ruth. She did, however, go on to study physical therapy at Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, received her certificate, and was recommended for the position in Humboldt.

The need for a therapist was dramatized by the polio epidemics of the late 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Those of us who were children then recall summertime meant polio season. Often the fear in the minds of parents and children clouded the joyful, sunny days of summer vacation. Newspapers with big, black headlines and dramatic stories recorded the epidemics as they spread across the country. The Pathe Newsreels often showed the feeding of polio patients encased iron lungs with only their heads protruding. Every class in school had one or two victims of the crippling disease to remind us that the mysterious affliction could strike at home as well, and as soon as a case was reported locally, was on the alert.

“Don’t get too tired — perhaps you shouldn’t go swimming,” was often heard, for one of the myths was that one caught it from swimming. Frequently several in a family would succumb. Humboldt County’s polio patients, as well as children with other crippling diseases, awaited Ruth at the County Hospital. She checked in with Lantz Smith, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, “…in the Eureka Inn where the bar is now located.” He was also chairman of the Crippled Childrens’ Dr. Philip Committee, comprised of active community leaders who were generously supporting the program for crippled children. Whenever a case was brought to her, she had to clear it with Smith and the committee at the Eureka Inn. This was the Depression, and money was scarce.

“I always came back to the office smelling like a cigar,” she laughed. “Whenever they rejected a patient, I would have the parent take my report to them, and they would always accept my recommendation. They were concerned, big-hearted men.”

The Kiwanis Club was especially active in helping the program, and each year the committee and doctors took the children, therapists and volunteers to Dr. Orris Myers’ summer home near everyone Miranda for an all-day picnic, an event many of the children remember as special indeed, for there was great camaraderie among them. They supported and felt comfort for one another in their fight to recover the use of their bodies.

Tony Costa describes this aspect vividly. Costa was a handsome nine-year-old with curly black hair when he contracted polio on Aug. 5, 1935. He recalls how a sharp pain ran up his spine at first; the next day he had a high fever and lost his ability to use his muscles. It was a week before a diagnosis was made, and a quarantine sign was posted on the front of his home. Dr. Lane Falk was his doctor, but when it was determined that he had polio, Tony was turned over to Dr. Charles Falk because he had no children. Doctors feared the disease too.

Tony was placed in the isolation ward behind the TB School by the County Hospital on Harrison Avenue for three weeks. During this time, no one was allowed to visit him. His poor mother, devastated by the situation, collapsed. He is forever grateful to his cousin Marie Cummins, who came every night and stood outside until he fell asleep, and later, with her husband Dave, visited him nightly when he was in the hospital. His mother continued under medical care, and when he was released from the hospital, he went to live with Dorlinda Rocha.

When his fever subsided at the isolation ward, he could move a little. He was then taken to a private room at the main hospital and later to the ward with the other children, where he stayed for two years.

Those years were filled with pain, boredom and loneliness. But the children tried hard to fill the void — and did with mischief. “We were real devils,” Tony recalls. “Lots of spitball, water and pillow fights. My chief regret is losing two years of education.” Later Sister Alphonse helped him catch up when he entered seventh grade at the convent school.

It was during his hospitalization that Ruth gave him his life-saving therapy. Like sunshine she came into the lives of these children. As Tony describes: “She was always smiling and joking, but she was a stern taskmaster and made us do our exercises, which could be very painful.” It was her massaging that Costa remembers the most. “She had very strong, knowing hands that worked our muscles like dough, and it made us feel good.”

Beyond the massage and exercise to stimulate the muscles, Ruth supervised nurses who applied hot packs on the new cases of polio. Volunteers, including Hazel Myers, Dr. Orris Myers’ wife, helped with this task. There was also a large tub, called a “Hubbard Tank,” used for therapy in warm water. This was later moved to the hospital.

Although Ruth was a dedicated professional, she enjoyed a social life with the nurses and new friends she made in Humboldt. She hadn’t been here long before an energetic young reporter, Dwight O’Dell, came to interview her and proceeded to court her. They married in 1934 at the home of Assemblyman Robert Fisher and his wife Bess near Carlotta. In 1936 the O’Dells had a son, whom they named Robert, after their friend. Robert now lives in London, England, with his wife and family.

For several years Ruth, known as “Mrs. O’Dell” to the children, worked in the old county building at Sixth and J streets across from the Sumner Carson house (now replaced by the Times-Standard newspaper building).

She recalls the county building well: “As you entered, the therapy office was on the left, the Agriculture Department on the right, and the probation offices were upstairs. At first the children were brought to me.”

Tony Costa remembers those trips. Frank Machado, crippled by multiple sclerosis; Melba Carlson, impaired by a severe arthritis; and he were driven to their treatments in a taxi by Cliff Kirkemo, who owned his cab, and was paid by the county with March of Dimes funds for the service. The children became close friends.

Frank Machado was always cheerful, according to Ruth. As a man, after he had successfully operated his own store in west Arcata for many years, he traveled to Portugal to visit the village of his family, where he rode at the head of a parade the villagers formed to honor him. When he returned, he visited Ruth, who claims she’ll never forget his joy in describing this climax to his life.

“I just loved all those children,” she says, “and it always thrilled me to see them succeed as so many have.”

A source of pride for Tony Costa, his wife Joanne, and their family is the large, attractive home which, in spite of his handicap, he built largely by himself, “…with a little help,” he grins. “I did carry the stone and mix the mortar for the huge fireplace and hearth.”

Ruth’s career as a therapist continued, with two short breaks, until 1957. The period at the Sixth and J streets house did not last long. Instead of having the children come to her, she went to the children at the hospital.

Polio continued its course until 1955 when the Salk vaccine was finally approved for general use. Other crippling diseases have not been as effectively attacked. However, as Ruth points out, therapy and surgical techniques have improved. It was difficult in the early days because there was no orthopedic surgeon in Humboldt. “We depended on Dr. Howard Markel from San Francisco, who came here to hold clinics and care for our patients.

“Today,” Ruth continued, “we have discovered among aging former polio victims a weakening of the muscles, a postpolio syndrome.”

Among her patients in the later years was John Argo, who had a career with the city schools. He says that he owes much to Ruth for her patience in treating him after polio. “Therapy is very tedious and repetitive, but she would always keep my spirits up.”

Ruth has many happy memories of successes, but she has tragic memories too. Young Jim McGowan was a plucky youngster who eventually was placed in an iron lung. Ruth had to leave the county for a brief time to follow her husband, and it broke her heart to leave this little fellow, for she knew he did not have long to live.

Her patients were not always children. Ruth was called in to help adult patients too. During one of the later epidemics, she met Rasmus Beck, born near Ferndale, grandson of an early Danish settler. “He was an exceptionally strong man who had loved his work as a cowboy,” she said, “and seeing him immobilized with polio was particularly moving for me.” By then alone, they each discovered a deep mutual attraction and eventually married. Rasmus, strong and determined, recovered enough to earn his living at a new occupation. “He was a wonderful cook and gardener,” Ruth said, “and we were happy together until he died in 1972.”

Ruth found children adapted to paralysis more readily than adults, for the disease seemed to hit older persons harder. “For children life goes on,” she said. “What was most painful was mothers being ill and marriages breaking up under the stress.” Often she volunteered to nurse older patients because it was difficult to find nurses willing to help, especially on weekends. She nursed Dr. Philip Rummel and his wife when they were stricken.

Today, at 86, Ruth enjoys her own home and friends in Eureka, among them many of her former special children. “I just loved those kids—like my own,” she said. Undoubtedly her loving was the underlying secret of her success and the wellspring of her joyous personality that even now fills any rooms where she is with sunlight.

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The story above was originally printed in the September-October 1992 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.