Breath A Lifetime in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung: A Memoir

by Mason, Martha; Rivers Siddons, Anne

• ISBN13: 9781608191192
• ISBN10: 1608191192
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-22
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Summary

The remarkable, inspiring story of one of the most extraordinary women you'll ever meet the irresistible memoir of a joyful, generous, and spirited life lived from within an iron lung.After contracting polio as a young girl Martha Mason of tiny Lattimore, North Carolina, lived a record sixty-one of her seventy-one years in an iron lung until her death in 2009, but she never let the 800-pound cylinder define her. The subject of a documentary film, an NPR feature, an ABC News piece, and a widely syndicatedNew York Timesobituary, Martha enjoyed life, and people. From within her iron lung, she graduated first in her class in high school and at Wake Forest University, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She was determined to be a writer and, with her devoted mother taking dictation, she became a journalistbut had to give up her career when her father became ill. Still, Martha created for herself a vast and radiant worldholding dinner parties with the table pushed right up to her iron lung, voraciously reading, running her own household, and caring for her mother when she became ill with Alzheimer's and increasingly abusive to Martha. When voice-activated computers became available, Martha wroteBreath, in part as a tribute to her mother. "This book is her story," writes Anne Rivers Siddons in her preface, "told in the rich words of a born writer. That she told it is a gift to everyone who will read it. That she told it is also as near to a miracle as most are likely to encounter."

Author Biography

Martha Mason, who is believed to have lived longer in an iron lung than any other person, resided in her family home in Lattimore, North Carolina, attended by three faithful assistants. She died in May 2009.

Table of Contents

Map of Lattimore	p. xii
Foreword	p. xv
Acknowledgments	p. xix
Introduction	p. xxi
Living on the Edge When You Don't Know Tea from Turnips	p. 3
My Fair Helper	p. 12
A Thin White Curtain	p. 28
My Best Friend	p. 44
The Miracle of the Unwrapping	p. 53
Rescued by Wonderful Wanda, Prozac, and a Dragon	p. 65
Christmas Eve, 1945	p. 83
Lattimore in the Late Forties	p. 87
A Farm of My Own	p. 114
Boys	p. 121
Pulling Another Br'er Rabbit	p. 143
A Spider's Web	p. 153
The Long Yellow Barrel	p. 181
Mrs. Lee's Pythias	p. 201
My Hometown Collectibles	p. 226
From the Order of the Border to the Society of Phi Beta Kappa	p. 252
You Can Go Home Again	p. 278
Mother's Merry Twilight	p. 305
April 15, 1998	p. 319
The Old Girls Try Ostrich Burgers	p. 322
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.