Remembering Wytheville’s polio epidemic, 75 years ago

Remembering Wytheville’s polio epidemic, 75 years ago

For 13-year-old Jean Kitts Lester, the finality of polio struck home when schools reopened.  Lester was 13 during the epidemic. Courtesy Jean Kitts Lester. “A small town, you knew all the kids in school, just about,” said Lester, now 88, in an interview at Wytheville’s Thomas J. Boyd Museum. “The roll was called every day, alphabetical order. The first couple days back, I had a friend, her last name was Taylor, and when it got to the Ts, her na…