Despite the pampered background, there's nothing hoity-toity about Literary Club mainstay Margaret Shepherd. At 91, she's earthy and outgoing, still full of the philosophical humor that has sustained her throughout her busy life.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A stately brunette, a graduate of Sweet Briar, her picture appeared frequently in the society pages in an era when a woman's place was in the home or on a committee at the country club.
In 1959, she joined one of the city's most prestigious women's organizations, the Woman's Kanawha Literary Club, founders of the 100-year-old Kanawha County Public Library. Later today, as part of the library centennial, she will attend a special tea honoring the club for its role in the library's history.
Despite the pampered background, there's nothing hoity-toity about Margaret Shepherd. At 91, she's earthy and outgoing, still full of the philosophical humor that has sustained her throughout her busy life.
Right off, she brings up the polio -- infantile paralysis, they called it then. Diagnosed at 18 months, she waltzed through life with a limp, danced and traveled and played golf and generally thumbed her nose at the idea of disability.
"I think I brought polio to the United States because I had it when I was a year and a half old. Around here, they didn't know anything about it. My little doctor in St. Albans said, 'Oh, she has summer colic or flu.' I couldn't walk. They took me to Johns Hopkins and they verified it. My grandmother kept saying, 'That child has infantile paralysis.' There was no such word as polio.
"I couldn't run and play. I have a picture of me in a brace. I wasn't a bit self-conscious. I was taught not to be. I took it for granted. If you have to get polio, that's the time to have it. Grow up with it and you don't know any better.
"My mother was the one who suffered. I was a baby, and I had to be entertained while she did three hours of exercises every day that I could have done in 20 minutes if I'd known what I was doing.
"I was fortunate enough to be sent to Boston for surgery when I was 12. Years later, I picked up a magazine and read about President Roosevelt. I knew he had polio, and I found out we had the same doctor. I met him when I was on one of my annual visits to Boston to have the checkup on my leg.
"A man came up to me and said, 'Would you like to meet the president?' It was a reporter after a sob story. I have a picture of me waving to the president. He rode through the train station in an open car. The car stopped, and we shook hands. He said, 'Oh do come visit us at Warm Springs, Miss Weimer.' That was the extent of our conversation.
"After they did the surgery in Boston, I took off to the golf course and played golf for 40 years and loved it. I had a hole-in-one on the ninth hole of the old Edgewood course. I think I got a box of Life Savers as my reward.
"I didn't have any idea what I wanted to be, but I went to college. I was an English major because that was the only thing I had sense enough to do, no science or anything terribly important. I went to Sweet Briar. That leads me to the real event in my life. I spent my junior year in Scotland at St. Andrews.
"We went by boat. Nobody flew in those days. I went on a small ship, the City of Newport News. Thirty years later, my brother-in-law, Banks Shepherd, said something about being on the City of Newport News during the war. I said, 'Heavens above, I went to Europe on that ship!' That was before it was taken over by the Navy for the war.
"Nobody would do any deck games on the ship. 'Gone with the Wind' had just been published, and they were all into that book. When I came back, I mentioned to my very puritanical aunt that I loved reading 'Gone with the Wind' and thanked her for giving it to me. She said, 'Oh, I was so shocked when I read that and realized I gave you that bad, bad book!' Boy, if she could see the literature now!
"It happened to be the year of the abdication of King Edward, and the following summer was the coronation of the queen's father, George VI. I was able to be in London for those events, a wonderful experience for a little hick from St. Albans, W.Va.
"I loved Scotland. It made a complete Anglophile out of me. I am hopelessly in love with England and have been back several times.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. --
A stately brunette, a graduate of Sweet Briar, her picture appeared frequently in the society pages in an era when a woman's place was in the home or on a committee at the country club. In 1959, she joined one of the city's most prestigious women's organizations, the Woman's Kanawha Literary Club, founders of the 100-year-old Kanawha County Public Library. Later today, as part of the library centennial, she will attend a special tea honoring the club for its role in the library's history.
Despite the pampered background, there's nothing hoity-toity about Margaret Shepherd. At 91, she's earthy and outgoing, still full of the philosophical humor that has sustained her throughout her busy life.
Right off, she brings up the polio -- infantile paralysis, they called it then. Diagnosed at 18 months, she waltzed through life with a limp, danced and traveled and played golf and generally thumbed her nose at the idea of disability.
"I think I brought polio to the United States because I had it when I was a year and a half old. Around here, they didn't know anything about it. My little doctor in St. Albans said, 'Oh, she has summer colic or flu.' I couldn't walk. They took me to Johns Hopkins and they verified it. My grandmother kept saying, 'That child has infantile paralysis.' There was no such word as polio.
"I couldn't run and play. I have a picture of me in a brace. I wasn't a bit self-conscious. I was taught not to be. I took it for granted. If you have to get polio, that's the time to have it. Grow up with it and you don't know any better.
"My mother was the one who suffered. I was a baby, and I had to be entertained while she did three hours of exercises every day that I could have done in 20 minutes if I'd known what I was doing.
"I was fortunate enough to be sent to Boston for surgery when I was 12. Years later, I picked up a magazine and read about President Roosevelt. I knew he had polio, and I found out we had the same doctor. I met him when I was on one of my annual visits to Boston to have the checkup on my leg.
"A man came up to me and said, 'Would you like to meet the president?' It was a reporter after a sob story. I have a picture of me waving to the president. He rode through the train station in an open car. The car stopped, and we shook hands. He said, 'Oh do come visit us at Warm Springs, Miss Weimer.' That was the extent of our conversation.
"After they did the surgery in Boston, I took off to the golf course and played golf for 40 years and loved it. I had a hole-in-one on the ninth hole of the old Edgewood course. I think I got a box of Life Savers as my reward.
"I didn't have any idea what I wanted to be, but I went to college. I was an English major because that was the only thing I had sense enough to do, no science or anything terribly important. I went to Sweet Briar. That leads me to the real event in my life. I spent my junior year in Scotland at St. Andrews.
"We went by boat. Nobody flew in those days. I went on a small ship, the City of Newport News. Thirty years later, my brother-in-law, Banks Shepherd, said something about being on the City of Newport News during the war. I said, 'Heavens above, I went to Europe on that ship!' That was before it was taken over by the Navy for the war.
"Nobody would do any deck games on the ship. 'Gone with the Wind' had just been published, and they were all into that book. When I came back, I mentioned to my very puritanical aunt that I loved reading 'Gone with the Wind' and thanked her for giving it to me. She said, 'Oh, I was so shocked when I read that and realized I gave you that bad, bad book!' Boy, if she could see the literature now!
"It happened to be the year of the abdication of King Edward, and the following summer was the coronation of the queen's father, George VI. I was able to be in London for those events, a wonderful experience for a little hick from St. Albans, W.Va.
"I loved Scotland. It made a complete Anglophile out of me. I am hopelessly in love with England and have been back several times.
"One of my classmates was the daughter of a Rhodes Scholar who was friends with a lovely old gentleman in London. He invited her to come to London and bring a friend. We had a wonderful time. All these old ladies and gentlemen were so excited about having these young Americans around. We were wined and dined for a week or so during the coronation.
"Your parents probably heard the abdication, the king bidding farewell to be with the woman he loved, Wally Simpson. The next day, you wouldn't know anything had happened. It was just another day in London. That's the English way.
"I came back for my senior year and graduated, and then my mother and I took a long trip back to Scotland and Europe. We did the grand tour. The next year, I married Walton in the garden of our home in St. Albans. I was a June bride, and I swore I would never be a June bride.
"We were in Washington at the time of Pearl Harbor. Walton had a Reserve commission in the Navy JAG Corps. We ended up in Indianapolis at Fort Benjamin Harrison. I loved Indianapolis. When the war was over, I wanted to stay. You walked down the street in a uniform and somebody would invite you to dinner.
"After the war, we came right back to our house, which we had rented. Walton was a lawyer as are my two sons. Have you looked at the lawyers in the phone book? There must be a lot of bad people in Charleston judging from that phone book.
"I was involved in everything. In 1959, I joined the Woman's Kanawha Literary Club. There are always just 20 members. Elizabeth Witchey wrote a funny little article about her memories of her first meeting and how scared she was. I felt the same way with all these brilliant women. Really they were just ordinary lovely ladies. One of the original ladies was still coming to meetings when I got in. She was nearly 100.
"My husband used to tease his mother, 'Well, you never made the Kanawha Literary Club.' That was the one thing she didn't belong to. You had to be asked to join, and nobody ever resigned.
"The Literary Club founded the Kanawha County Library. There's a plaque right behind the library desk that says, 'Founded by the Kanawha Literary Club.'
"The club meets every two weeks. It's not like a typical book club where everybody reads the same book. We go to great pains to select a subject for the year. Babylonia, for instance. In recent years, we studied new countries. You chose your own books, but it had to be about the subject. We'd have a paper read at each meeting on a subject within the general big subject.
"I no longer go because of my eyes. I've got that lovely macular stuff, so I resigned a couple of years ago. I can read, but it's hard.
"Walton died nearly 10 years ago. We had moved downtown to Riverview Terrace. It was practically new then. I loved being close to the library and the Y where I went every day to swim and exercise. I wasn't as crippled then. I didn't become a chair-bound lady until several years ago. The say polio comes back.
"All those years, I was quite active. I never walked quite normally because of a slight limp. I always had my shoes built up. I could play that hilly old Edgewood course across from our house. And we danced. Walton loved to dance.
"I guess I've been rather pampered because everything worked out so nicely. I do wish I could have done more for other people. I regret that I didn't have some kind of volunteer or paid job, but in those days, you went to college, and then you got married.
"My birthday is Dec. 8, and I don't want anything to do with it. It's been a happy life, but it's no fun being old."
Reach Sandy Wells at san...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5173.
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