The Story Polio Left Behind

How one family’s experience with polio inspired Sarah Schwerin’s novel, The Willow Still Sings.

For Sarah Schwerin, polio isn’t just a chapter in American history. It’s part of her family’s history.

Her mother contracted the disease as a child and spent an extended period in the hospital, separated from her family and the life she knew. Although she survived, the experience shaped the rest of her life.

Years later, Sarah began exploring that experience through fiction. The result was The Willow Still Sings, a historical novel about a mother whose daughter contracts polio during the 1952 epidemic.

As World Polio Day approaches on October 24, Sarah reflects on the family history behind the novel and what her mother’s experience taught her about resilience, faith, and the lasting impact of childhood illness.

When Childhood Changed

For generations who grew up before widespread polio vaccination, the disease was a frightening possibility. During outbreaks, parents restricted activities that ordinarily filled children’s summers.

“There seemed to be a pervasive fear surrounding polio,” Sarah explains. “Parents wanted to protect their children, so they forbade them from playing in the sprinklers, going swimming, and interacting with other children during the height of the polio outbreaks.”

For Sarah’s mother, polio was more than a distant threat.

“I believe polio deeply influenced and shaped my mom for the rest of her life,” Sarah says. “It was a traumatic experience to be a child in a hospital for such a long time and to be so far from her family and community.”

The separation, the uncertainty, and the lasting physical effects of the disease became part of her mother’s life story. But that was not the whole story.

Among the family photographs Sarah shared are images of a little girl playing outdoors, playing dress-up, and spending time with family. Other photographs show her growing older, navigating the world with crutches. Together, they preserve something important: a childhood that continued even after polio changed its course.

Telling the Story Through a Mother’s Eyes

When Sarah began writing The Willow Still Sings, she chose not to tell the story primarily through the eyes of a child with polio. Instead, she imagined what the experience might have meant for a mother watching her daughter suffer.

Set in Detroit in 1952, the novel follows Florence Miller, whose carefully tended family life is disrupted when her daughter Jane contracts polio. As Jane faces hospitalization and an uncertain recovery, Florence must confront fear, grief, guilt, and the painful reality that she cannot protect her daughter from everything.

Sarah’s decision to write from Florence’s perspective was deeply personal. “As a mom who has raised a child with special needs, I felt I could empathize more with a mother who dealt with a health tragedy in her family,” she explains. “Like Florence, the mother in The Willow Still Sings, I have learned that no matter the challenges our children face, we must still choose to love them and advocate for them in a world that might not understand their needs.”

That perspective gives the novel much of its emotional weight. Florence cannot make Jane well through determination or love alone. She must learn how to support her daughter while facing circumstances beyond her control.

And in that difficult process, mother and daughter have something to teach each other. “Writing from the mother’s viewpoint also helped me explore the lessons our children can teach us, just as Florence learned about resilience and faith from her daughter,” Sarah says.

A Disease That Changed Entire Families

Polio affected more than the person who contracted it. Long hospital stays, rehabilitation, financial pressures, and changes in family responsibilities could reshape an entire household.

“Caring for a child with polio would put extra stress on any family, especially those who were already experiencing stress from daily life,” Sarah explains. “Just like Florence’s family in The Willow Still Sings, families had to redefine their roles in the family and adjust to the extra burden the long-term effects of polio might place on the household.”

In the novel, Jane’s hospitalization brings Florence face-to-face with the frightening realities of polio treatment. She sees children who depend on iron lungs to breathe. The machines are part of the novel’s historical setting, but Sarah’s story is concerned with something even more enduring: what happens to a family when ordinary life becomes uncertain.

Sarah also discovered examples of communities responding with generosity. Families contributed to the March of Dimes, helping support efforts against polio and providing assistance to some affected families. Even amid widespread fear, people found ways to help one another.

The Strength That Remains

As Sarah researched the novel, she read biographies and memoirs of people who had survived polio. What impressed her most was not simply what they had endured, but how they continued living. “In the various biographies and memoirs I read, those affected displayed resilience, persistence, and a determination to live a normal life that reminded me so much of my mother.”

Across the decades, the pictures tell a story that extends far beyond a childhood diagnosis.

Remembering More Than the Disease

World Polio Day is an opportunity to remember the devastation polio caused, recognize the progress made against the disease, and acknowledge the people and families who lived with its consequences.

For Sarah Schwerin, that remembrance is personal. Her mother’s experience became the inspiration for a novel about courage, family, and faith. But the message she hopes readers carry away reaches beyond polio. “We can choose love even when it is tough, choose hope when life seems hopeless, and cling to our faith when circumstances threaten to drag us under.”

The Willow Still Sings is historical fiction, but the resilience behind it is real. And perhaps that is the most meaningful part of the story polio left behind: not only what was lost or changed, but the love, determination, and faith that continued through it.

About the Book

The Willow Still Sings: A Story of Grace, Forgiveness, and the Strength of a Mother’s Love by Sarah Schwerin is a Christian historical novel set in 1952 Detroit. Through the experiences of Florence Miller and her daughter Jane, the story explores a family’s struggle with polio and the enduring strength of a mother’s love.

Published by Abundance Books, April 2026.

ISBN: 9781963377538

Available wherever books are sold.