Let's remember Jonas Salk on the polio anniversary, and remember those who suffered before.

"It was late morning when Iris and nine-year-old Gray in his leg braces drove towards town. In the distance, they could hear church bells. It seemed as though every church bell in town was tolling. And the fire siren went off. Horns began honking. Even the tornado siren started screaming though there was not a cloud in the sky, not a hint of wind. It should have been ominous, yet Iris felt like something wonderful had just happened.

It was after she parked the car that she saw the signs on the hardware store in crude, hastily-painted capital letters:

“THANK YOU, DR. SALK FOR INVENTING THE VACCINE!!! NO MORE POLIO!!!”

Iris squeezed Gray’s hand, helping him up the curb, but saying nothing."

The world celebrated on April 12, 1955, when Dr. Jonas Salk’s polio treatment was proven safe and effective. It was a phenomenon years in the making after President Franklin Roosevelt developed the March of Dimes in 1938..

In this excerpt from my memoir-based novella . "Too Early for Flowers: The Story of a Polio Mother" I reveal what life was like for one American family before science, ambition, dedication and generosity intervened.

The polio vaccine trial was the largest in history, with more than 1.8 million serving as test subjects.

The generosity of Americans was unmatched, and the findings would benefit every person vaccinated and future generations all over the earth.

It also is widely known that Dr. Salk would take no patent out on this potentially huge financial windfall.

“It would be like trying to patent the sun,” he famously observed.

It now seems sadly ironic that there are young parents who have never known polio who think there is no need to vaccinate since “polio just isn’t around anymore.”

Thanks largely to the generosity of the Gates Foundation and the endurance of Rotary International that is mostly true, except for a few cases in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Their hope is that the disease will be obliterated in just one year.

But meanwhile, caution must be taken on all fronts.

Unfortunately, Erin Olivera, a registered nurse now living in Moorpark, CA found out about polio the hard way. Her son Lucian, at 11 months, was struck by the polio-like virus, Acute Flaccid Myelitis.

His left leg became paralyzed. Then his shoulders were affected. To her count, more than 115 kids in the U.S. and more than 25 in Canada have been paralyzed. Cases are spread around the world. Like polio, it can be fatal.

There is no known cause.

I became familiar with Erin on Facebook. She was posting on polio web sites asking for information on how to cope.

I offered my book to her. She later said she learned from it, and passed the information on to other mothers whose children were affected.

If there is a Salk-like remedy, it is likely too late for her and the others. The polio vaccine is a prevention, not a cure and probably any help forthcoming would also be a prevention and not a cure.

Science never quits, however.

Some time ago on “60 Minutes,” Duke University’s Dr. Henry Friedman spoke of his success in curing cancer by the injection of the modified polio virus, letting the body’s own immune system destroy it.

It is ironic, that the same disease I suffered from could have possibly saved my older brother who died of melanoma, just a week after his daughter was born.

Kurt Sipolski is a Palm Desert,CA resident and author of “Too Early for Flowers: The Story of a Polio Mother.” His email is CanMan619@aol.com.