April 26, 2010
Hello Chuck,
My name is Sharon Graham
(Moore). I read your letter in the Altoona Mirror, Altoona, PA, April 18, 2010,
about the Lawrence Flick Hospital in Cresson. Your article was very interesting
and prompted me to tell you about my experiences during my stay at Lawrence Flick.
I had also spent approximately
13 months at Flick from 1956 to 1957. They operated on me and removed
my upper lobe (left lung). Drs. John Jones and Albert DeMatteis were my physicians
who operated and whom are now both deceased.
I was getting ready to
go to Kansas City, Missouri for flight school training in January, 1957, but it was discovered that I had advanced tuberculosis
during my employment at Sylvania in May, 1956. I took three years of home-study
courses that the flight school wanted me to study, and they wanted me to contact them when I was well to come for on-flight
training at the school. Instead I married my grade school sweetheart, David R.
Graham, and was a stay-at-home-mother or homemaker.
I met my husband at the Lakemont Roller Rink when I was 12 years old.
After our three children, David, age 50, Cindy, age 49 and Sherrill age 45 left the nest, we participated in roller
skating lessons and went on into competition after learning several different dances and won many championship titles and
awards. We were also very actively involved in the Jaffa Shrine functions and
had traveled a lot. We also had a 4th child in 1983, Jason,
age 27 (in September), who was born Down Syndrome. I guess God had it all planned
for me to have another child to help me and be a companion to me after my husband’s death in June, 1996. I had 38 wonderful years with my husband.
We met a lot of wonderful
people during our years in the roller skating world, and as I met a lot of wonderful people at the Cresson Hospital. There are some more than others I remember fondly and wonder where they are today. Some were cured from TB and some didn’t’ make it. I also enjoyed drawing and painting pictures on the windows of the deer that we would periodically
see outdoors while in quarantine, and everyone seemed to enjoy my art work. I
was very fortunate to have been one who had made it through and am blessed with good health today, with four wonderful children
and six beautiful grandchildren.
I would be interested
in a reunion in 2013. I am in the process of moving to the State College
area and, hopefully, that will be happening within the next 6 months. You
can contact me also through my daughter Cindy at candylady13@comcast.net or at moyerc@dickinson.edu .
I look forward to meeting
you and everyone who will come together to share our stories during a poignant, but memorable, time of our lives.
Thank you.
Sharon R. Graham (Moore)
