The Catawba County Historical Association is pleased to announce an addition to the “Miracle of Hickory: The 1944 Polio Epidemic” exhibit. The extension exhibit, “The Heart of the Healing,” will open Saturday, February 7, 2009, at the Harper House/ Hickory History Center.

Through photographs, “The Heart of the Healing” tells the story of the staff and caretakers that valiantly took up the fight against polio at the Emergency Hospital. The photographs detail the nursing staff and doctors tending to patients, and rehabilitation efforts to help patients continue their lives post-polio. The history of the March of Dimes will also be highlighted, as will the work of the organization during the
Hickory polio epidemic.

“The photographs of the Emergency Hospital show what words cannot express, that a true heart can surely heal in the hardest of times,” says Heather Deckelnick, curator of the “Miracle of Hickory” exhibits. “The smiles on the faces of the patients throughout the series of photographs, is due largely to the joyous spirits of the hospital staff that cared for them.”

The current exhibit at the Hickory History Center, “The Miracle of Hickory: The 1944 Polio Epidemic,” has been featured in the January issue of Our State, and can be found on page 92, titled “Miracle of Hickory” by Lydialyle Gibson.

“The Heart of the Healing” will be on display until 2010, at the Harper House/ Hickory History Center at 310 North Center Street, Hickory. For more information on the Polio exhibit or other activities at the Harper House/ Hickory History Center, please call 828-324-7294.

Miracle of Hickory: The 1944 Emergency Polio Hospital