In May 1944, Charles Davis, one of the reporters from the Hearst newspaper that got the initial penicillin to Patty's bedside in August 1943, brought readers across America up to date on Patty after his editor won the Pulitzer prize for reporting for the paper's efforts.
He revealed that six weeks after she was mere hours from death, she was released from the Lutheran Hospital, and I think the photo reveals she indeed does look radiant in her new bonnet.
But exactly three months later, (Davis says two months but I am going from death records for the only 2 year old named Patricia Malone dying in NY in late 1943) her weakened heart gave out and she died without any media attention.
A sad ending to a story I have been chasing for a long long time.
I can only hope she was as happy a child, for her parents' sake , as the almost two year I am getting to know in my household.
For a toddler isn't merely potentially a teenager/ young adult/ mother etc - she is already a somebody - in fact she is probably as happy from age one to three as she is ever going to be - these are her best years, years of exuberant open eyed discovery.
We tend to call a child permanently frozen at age two "retarded" but there are far worse ages to be frozen at , than the age of two.
Try being an angry, pimply lonely 16 year old forever, for a start !
Bon Voyage little Patty ; you did more at the age of two for humanity than a stadium full of statesmen could do if they lived to be a hundred....
He revealed that six weeks after she was mere hours from death, she was released from the Lutheran Hospital, and I think the photo reveals she indeed does look radiant in her new bonnet.
But exactly three months later, (Davis says two months but I am going from death records for the only 2 year old named Patricia Malone dying in NY in late 1943) her weakened heart gave out and she died without any media attention.
A sad ending to a story I have been chasing for a long long time.
I can only hope she was as happy a child, for her parents' sake , as the almost two year I am getting to know in my household.
For a toddler isn't merely potentially a teenager/ young adult/ mother etc - she is already a somebody - in fact she is probably as happy from age one to three as she is ever going to be - these are her best years, years of exuberant open eyed discovery.
We tend to call a child permanently frozen at age two "retarded" but there are far worse ages to be frozen at , than the age of two.
Try being an angry, pimply lonely 16 year old forever, for a start !
Bon Voyage little Patty ; you did more at the age of two for humanity than a stadium full of statesmen could do if they lived to be a hundred....
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