THE COLORFUL CHARACTERS OF CARVILLE

by Julia Rivera Elwood

Part 4

ZELLA BROWN

Zella Berry Brown was born in Denham Springs, LA, on May 12, 1914. At a very young age, she was diagnosed with Hansen's disease. She came to Carville to live and made her home here.

Zella had the tuberculoid type of Hansen's disease which affects the nerves. Through the years she suffered with bad feet and finally had a leg amputation and later lost the other leg. It must have been traumatic for her, but her spirit was never dampened by her adversities. She kept a positive outlook all her life.

Another attribute of hers was her great faith and love of community which her church offered to her in Denham Springs. When she was able, Zella attended services in her home town and through the years made many friends there. In later years, the pastor came to visit her at the Center at Carville and supported her with uplifting prayer and spiritual sessions. At the end of each therapy week in Occupational Therapy, Ms. Brown's favorite quote would be, "Don't forget to go to church."

The Carville community saw her daily going down the long hallways with her hand-steered antique wheelchair which served to strenghten her arm muscles. When she became too weak to maneuver the manual wheelchair, she was assigned an electric wheelchair, but her friends always remembered her in that antique chair because it became part of her character.

Zella had a habit of going to bed early and waking up at 3 A.M. to take her bath. Every morning after her coffee, she would go to the Canteen to wait for the newspaper. During the day she served as courier to and from the Canteen for the patients and staff of the Infirmary bringing drinks and treats for all who asked her.

Zella was an institution at Carville endearing herself to staff, patients and visitors. When she met someone for the first time she'd say, "Hi, I'm Zella Brown from Denham Springs." When country and western singers came to perform for the patients, Zella would always ask for her favorite selection, "Your Cheating Heart."

When Zella died on June 27,1998, it was a sad day at Carville. Her funeral was held at the Roberts United Methodist Church in Denham Springs, and a big contingency of patients and staff showed up for the "celebration of Zella's life" funeral. An energetic and touching service was held for her and the singing seemed to reach the heavens. She was finally happy in her "glory" which she spoke about while she was living.

Zella lived most of her life with zest. She loved to go to bingos and on the shopping sprees which were sponsored by the activities and recreation department. When photojournalists would visit, she loved to have her picture taken. And no matter how famous or how well-known the photographer was, Zella always told them how and where to take her picture, "because one time this man photographer came to shoot her picture and it was very good."

We honor Zella Brown here as a person who overcame her physical deformities with a spirit which will never die in the minds of those who knew and loved her.

JOHN KORVER

Three of a series of four of John Korver's drawings painted to commemorate the Center's 75th anniversary hang in the Trautman Museum. They were used as a backdrop for the special program celebration held on the anniversary of federal management.

A respected artist in various media, Korver has painted everything from Indians (his favorite subject) to bayou scenes, from seascapes to antebellum plantations and riverboats, and in later life, he became a sculptor. He was admitted as a patient to the Center in the 1970's at which time he was connected to the LSU art department.

Korver, who was born in Indonesia of a South African Dutch father and an Indo-French mother, always wanted to be a sea captain. His life has been a series of adventures from sailing around Europe to building his own 45-foot sailboat, to hunting tigers. He loved nature and collected stones.

  He and his wife, Ida, lived in different parts of the world. When in the Netherlands, American Greeting Card Company, Cleveland, OH, offered him a job, but there was no excitement and he left it after one year.

Soon after that, Ida was diagnosed with Hansen's disease, as was he. That is when he came to Louisiana where he said, "I love the Cajuns."

Both were discharged from the Center and went to live in California. He died in the mid 1990's.

SISTER HILARY ROSS

Sister Hilary Ross was a convert to Catholicism and came to Carville in the twenties. Her first position at the hospital was that of pharmacist. This energetic young Daughter of Charity was always willing to take on new tasks. At that time, Carville did not have a laboratory. She eagerly volunteered to receive professional training, established the first lab--crude as it was and with little equipment--and served as lab technician, photographer, microbiologist, and supervisor. During her years there, this kind person who loved the HD patients, built the lab to a respectable level until a pathologist was finally hired to manage and expand the laboratory. During the days when the sulfones were discovered, she undertook a formidable project, that of taking before and after pictures of the patients who were trying the then-experimental drug. She won a scientific prize for her dramatic photos. Never afraid to take on a new challenge, Sister Hilary became Carville's premier historian, after she researched and illustrated an historical book on the hospital from the beginning until 1958. It is one of the most complete histories ever done on the hospital using her photos throughout. Sister Hilary also preserved much material such as newspaper and magazine articles during her stay at Carville. After devotedly and lovingly serving the hospital and its patients for 30 years, in her mid-life, Sister Hilary, embarked upon a new challenge in her life. She left for Japan, where she established an orphanage, and supervised it for many years before she died.

GRACE CHOY

Grace Choy, a young, scared Chinese girl, came to Carville from California about 60 years ago. She attended school at the Center and received her diploma.

She suffered with many nerve problems during the time she spent at the Center. Her fingers were clawing, and became insensitive as time passed, but that did not prevent her from studying piano and singing alto in the choir. Grace also learned how to knit--one of her favorite pastimes--and made some difficult pattern sweaters, one of which is on display in the museum. One would often find her on a rocking chair in the front porch of the building where she lived listening to classical music and knitting. She was also a great cook and would delight her friends by cooking delicious meals and sharing them with her friends and neighbors. She had crippled, but not disabled hands.

During the Center's 1994 Centennial Celebration, main speaker at the November 30 program, James Carville, used Grace as an example of able hands, not disabled. He brought Grace up to the podium with him, and showing a beautiful green sweater she had made, asked the audience, "Is this the work of a disabled person?"

Grace was enthralled with the three miles of corridors at Carville and rode them daily in her three-wheel cycle ringing the bell to warn pedestrians she was coming.

She loved the delicious Louisiana Cajun food and many times was the instigator of a "crawfish boil" and seafood gumbo get-togethers.

Her outgoing personality moved her to be involved in the many activities at the hospital. She was an active member of the American Legion Auxiliary and the Eight and Forty organizations. During the time she attended school at Carville, she participated in the school plays which were presented by patients and school staff. In her later life, she loved to play bingo and attended many of the dances and parties given for the patients.

In 1998, Grace and a few others attended the International Congress of Leprosy in Beijing, China, and, in addition, they visited Hansen's disease institutions in China while there, exchanging views and fellowship with other people who have had Hansen's disease. She also took in the Wall of China and was gratified to have visited China in her lifetime.

Even though she was diagnosed early in her life, Grace's family was supportive during her hospitalization and she visited them yearly.

For many years, and way after retirement age, Grace worked at The Star magazine, at which she held the managing editor position at the time of her death in 1998.

RITA DONALDSON

Rita Donaldson was a native of Louisiana, who at 21, was diagnosed with Hansen's disease, brought to Carville and, according to her, "dumped" at the Carville Center by her father. She never saw her parents again.

The family did not allow her to attend their funerals, and the one which really hurt her was her father's. She never got over not being able to attend her father's funeral.

Even though her family ostracized her, Rita never lost her optimism. It was that which carried her through the tough times when she was losing her eyesight. After she was blind, Rita would walk in the long corridors tap-tapping her cane on her way to the infirmary, the Eye Clinic for an appointment, or to the Canteen to socialize with her friends. She had such a great spirit, that no one could visit her without leaving her room feeling uplifted! She touched many lives and had many friends during her lifetime, most of whom were delighted with her boisterous laugh.

Rita always had a pot of Community coffee (considered to be the favorite java for Cajuns in Louisiana) brewing in her room for her special guests, and never tired of telling stories--true to her French heritage--of the old days at Carville. In the last 10 years of her life, she delighted reporters with her life story which she energetically repeated.

In her later years, after she was a patient at the Center for 60 years, a niece called her, started to visit Rita, and was determined to make up for the wrongs the other members of the family had committed against her. She was then a student at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. There were several happy visits between the two before Rita's death.

JOHNNY P HARMON

The story of Johnny P Harmon is one of sadness, suffering, happiness and success. The first time he saw the U S Marine Hospital at Carville was several years before he was diagnosed. He came to visit his brother Elmo, who, Johnny says, "Died a horrible death here." In 1935 he entered the hospital as a patient at 24 years old spending three years there. After he left to go back to Texas, he was able to stay out four years. By 1942, Harmon spent 13 years at Carville, during which time he says he feels that he participated in the research on humans to look for a cure for Hanse's disease. The hardest experiment was the dreaded "fever therapy," for which he was sent to the New Orleans Public Health Service Hospital. It consisted of placing the entire body, except for the head, into a cylinder and heating the person's body temperature to 104 or 106 degrees. The elevated temperature was held for 20-30 minutes, or until the person asked to be let out. He could not take many of these treatments, he remembers, because they left him drained. Looking back now, Harmon says that the fever therapy may have been what got rid of the germ.

He found the love of his life, Anne, at Carville. The romance and resulting marraige produced two children at a time when marraige was discouraged, let alone having children. A wonderful family took in the children and reared them until Johnny and Anne were together again in the outside community of Vacherie in 1957.

While he was at Carville, Harmon worked at The Star magazine in the capacity of photographer. Here is where he learned the trade which would support his family for 40 years. Professionally, his first love was drafting and he worked with the Texas Highway Department as an engineer prior to being admitted to the hospital.

Always willing to talk to the press, Harmon has been featured in newspaper, radio and television. He has tried to promote understanding of HD by telling his story. His brilliant mind always worked overtime, and at 84, he was writing and typing his own autobiography, King of the Microbes. Already into its third printing, he self-published and sold about 500 copies. At 87, he has started to learn how to use the computer after the recent death of his beloved Anne. Now his favorite pasttime is to e-mail his complaints to Washington, DC. Two other milestones in his life were that in September 1999, he moved to a new location for the National Hansen's Disease Center in Summit Hospital, Baton Rouge and he is now battling cancer.

This diminutive man is a giant with an indomitable spirit who squeezes every ounce of life and savors it. There are many lessons to be learned here.

BETTY MARTIN

Betty Martin came to Carville when she was 19 years old. A native of New Orleans, Betty was a beautiful debutante who was diagnosed just when she knew that the world was hers. She was engaged to Robert, who was supportive at first, but did not remain faithful. At the time Betty came to Carville, the majority of patients took assumed names in order to protect their families from the stigma attached to leprosy. Although she has contended most of her life with Hansen's disease, her secret must not be revealed.

About 20 years after she was diagnosed, Martin wrote her autobiography, Miracle at Carville, and it became a minor classic. Her sequel, No One Must Ever Know, did not do as well, but does chronicle their lives after 1950.

When Betty first arrived, she found a job in the laboratory and there worked with the wonderful Sister Hilary Ross. Betty had to take the foul-smelling, ugly tasting Chaulmoogra oil, which was the only medicine offered at the time. She was there in 1941 when the sulfones were introduced to be effective and became a human guinea pig.

She was Stanley Stein's staunch friend and acted in some of the Little Theatre plays which he produced. Martin suffered the lonliness which comes with confinement, but also made lifelong friends of some of the patients.

Meanwhile, she met and married (after 12 years of courting) Harry, her lifelong friend and husband of 50 years. They left Carville and lived in Louisiana, California, and back. After about 35 years of living out in the community, they became elderly and ill, both were admitted to Carville in the 1990's. Harry, who was a loving, kind man, died three years ago, leaving Betty alone at Carville. Even though Martin still does not give out her true name, she believes that the public should be educated and has granted many interviews for newspaper, magazines, and television using her alias.

After about 30 years of being out of print, Martin's brother-in-law has published both her books again. The sales are brisk.

She has recently moved to the Summit Hospital in Baton Rouge and is living there at the National Hansen's Disease Center. At 88, she is still beautiful and a "low maintenance" patient, according to the staff.

STANLEY STEIN

Stanley Stein was born and reared in Boerne, Texas. Shortly after his admission to Carville, Stein, a pharmacist by profession, elected to be the editor of the "Sixty-six Star," which he started as a local bulletin in 1931. Stein became ill and could not continue with his project until 1941 when The Star magazine was started up again, "radiating the light of truth on Hansen's disease." By that time, the disease had rendered him blind.

Stein was the first real public relations person Carville ever had. Through The Star, he made friends in high places with the help of the American Legion members. With their aid, together with the Patients' Federation, Stein led the fight to restore voting rights to patients in 1946. As The Star grew, he obtained the support of the Forty and Eight veteran's organization as a sponsor for the magazine. They obtained subscriptions and bought much-needed equipment for the young magazine.

Through the years, The Star grew to a circulation of 80,000 with subscirbers behind the Iron Curtain, and in many foreign countries, especially those in which HD was a problem. It became a respected semi-medical journal which was sometimes used as a teaching tool for HD field workers.

Besides trying to give the patients something to do by producing Little Theatre plays, Stein was busy trying to eliminate the custom of sterilizing the outgoing mail. He was not successful until 1968, a year after his death.  Before he died, Stein revealed his real name, Sidney Maurice Levyson, and wrote his autobiography, Alone No Longer. It is replete with history, facts about Hansen's disease, and many stories of the old days at Carville.

He was a fighter for patients' rights, a trailblazer, and a hero to other persons with HD. The main boulevard at the Center at Carville is named Stanley Stein Drive.