Warm Springs - The plaques on each of the 125 white columns only hint at the history: of the famous and plain folks, some living, many dead; of the healing waters and healing hands, too.

In Memory of Mom - Helen M. Beier, patient - 1953, Iowa.

In Honor of D.W. & Josephine Bussey, "Little B & Cokey Jo."

In Loving Memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The plaque on column No. 24 simply reads:

Donated by Charles V. Dickens Jr.

"Real nice," Dickens said in October, sitting in his wheelchair and reaching out to tap the new column - his column - on the walkway bordering the grassy quadrangle at the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. "This'll all be here long after I'm gone."

Dickens, 77, a retiree now living in Barnesville and a childhood polio survivor, is one of dozens of donors from 19 states who gave $1,000 for each of the new columns erected at this medical rehabilitation facility.

The original aging, wooden columns were decaying badly. The new poly-marble columns, like countless patients here, stand tall and proud. But, for many of the donors, their contributions had less to do with improving the aesthetics than giving back to an institution that they credit with forever altering their lives by fostering their independence, in spite of their physical disabilities.

"This marvelous place," Dickens said. "I was here when 'The Man' was here."

That would be President Franklin Roosevelt, who first came here in 1924 for warm-water treatments for his paralysis and ended up starting the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation for polio research.

A column dedicated to FDR's memory was donated by John A. Swearingen of Brookfield, Mo., who contracted polio at age 2 but came here at 15. His polio, Swearingen recently wrote to the institute in explaining his donation, "had been badly mismanaged. I realized then that Warm Springs was my last hope, that whatever they gave me was what I would have in life."

The care and rehabilitation Swearingen found here enabled him to lead a far more normal life. "I love Warm Springs so very much," said Swearingen, who also sponsored a column for himself.

"It is universally recognized that it was Roosevelt who gave vision, and heart, to Warm Springs," Swearingen wrote. Other columns and plaques are testimonials to former patients, current and ex-staffers, state and business leaders, organizations and the institute.

Polio in the United States has been virtually eradicated, but the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation still serves patients in four major areas: inpatient rehabilitation (for amputees, spinal cord injuries, stroke victims and people with brain damage); long-term acute care; vocational rehabilitation to help with job skills; and outpatient services.

Some of the columns and plaques speak to these contemporary services, but most hark back to the days before Dr. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine in 1955, back when the warm spring waters were first discovered to be beneficial to polio patients.

"I remember coming over here and swimming in the pools, and people back home in Woodbury thinking I was going to get polio," said Mike Mills, who donated a column to honor his mother, Margaret, the beloved head nurse on the east wing whom everyone knew as Peggy.

"People just didn't know back then," Mills said. "We swam in the pools all the time. We were around people and the [polio] patients. It was an educational thing: You're not going to get polio in a pool."

Dickens was stricken in August 1941. "There was a polio epidemic in Atlanta," said Dickens, whose family lived in Adamsville near the old Fulton County Airport. "I couldn't take a step. I was paralyzed. The doctor said I wouldn't walk again."

Dickens came here as a terrified 11-year-old.

"They started giving me pool treatments," he said. "These waters, they'll help you. My muscles started coming back."

Dickens had severe curvature of the spine, however. He endured two back operations. "I spent four or five of my high school years down here in a plaster cast, lying in bed," said Dickens, who still managed to take in a movie each Saturday afternoon with the other patients.

"They'd take me down to the movie house on a stretcher, and lay me on my stomach so I could watch the movie," said Dickens, who enjoyed "all the World War II movies. And the cowboy movies - John Wayne, even Tom Mix."

Eventually, Dickens could walk and swim in the warm pools with The Man himself.

"Roosevelt was the most unusual man you've ever seen," said Dickens, later a loan officer for 30 years before retiring. "He had these little bitty legs, from polio. But from the waist up? Whoa! He was a big man. I saw him for the last time on April 10, 1945. Two days before he died."

When Dickens heard of the column fund-raising campaign, he gladly contributed. "This place did so much for me," he said, "maybe that column will help a bit."

Rachel Kassack was a rehabilitation patient here for a month in 2003. That June, Kassack and her husband, Irving, were involved in a horrific auto accident. He was killed, she severely injured. Her left leg was nearly severed; a metal rod was implanted in her right leg. Both ankles were broken, her right hand crushed.

"They were just wonderful to me in rehab," said Kassack, 52. The Thomaston resident donated one column in her name and one in her husband's memory.

Stephen Shelton of Kennesaw donated a column in memory of his late aunt, Janey Scroggs. She was a patient here from 1941 to 1954, endured 27 operations (five for spinal fusion) and was one of the patients who lined the way to say goodbye when Roosevelt's body left Georgia Hall for the train trip to Washington.

"Warm Springs, Ga., was the mecca for rehabilitation," said Marge Smith, who worked as a physical therapist in Indiana before coming here in 1974 as an administrator. Smith helped donate two columns, in honor of therapists Betty Brown and Kathryn Phillips. "It's the total dedication of all these people here that really stands out," she said.

James L. Woods understands. On March 14, 1953, his 13th birthday, Woods underwent spinal fusion surgery. Five months later, Woods - who now lives in Fillmore, Ind. - was finally well enough to go home. But the same day he received that good news, a nurse realized he hadn't passed the walking test required to be discharged.

"I had been on my back, side or stomach for over five months," wrote Woods, who late that same night eased himself out of bed and held onto a windowsill to stand up.

The next day, he was carried on a stretcher to the quadrangle.

A walking class was interrupted as Woods, unsure whether he could walk but determined to give it his best shot, was helped to his feet.

Now, 53 years later, Woods' column rests on the same corner of the quadrangle where his stretcher stopped one summer's day. The plaque reads:

Donated By:

James L. Woods

"I Walked Again Aug. 1953."

- This article is a reprint from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.