In 1941, Halloran Hospital was established in New York on the current site of the Staten Island College. During World War II, it was the largest facility in the nation for treating wounded veterans. One of those soldiers was nineteen year old John Crown who’d broken his back in the Pacific. In 1950, Dr. Howard Rusk, known today as the father of rehabilitative medicine, recounted his experience of Crown:
He weighed only seventy pounds because he ate practically nothing, remarking, “Why should I?”
There was a Red Cross Gray Lady in the hospital who used to visit him every day, and she always asked him the same question, “John, is there anything you want today?” and the reply was always the same, “Yes, I want to die.” This went on for weeks, and one day she said, “John, isn’t there something you would like to say before you die?” and after a long pause, he said, “Yes, I think there is.” There was a creative writing workshop at the hospital, which included such distinguished writers as John Hersey, Hervey Allen, John Mason Brown, and Meyer Berger. They all helped him.
At the first week’s seminar expression was so painful that he only wrote his name. When he began to write, he began to eat. He gained weight and finally was able to leave the hospital. He went to his home in Staten Island where he had a special room with bookcases all around the bed that he could reach at any time of day or night. He said one day on a visit to his home, “You know, I didn’t even get to finish high school before I went to war, but now I can read any time I want to. It is almost worth being paralyzed.”
In 1942, John Crown goes on to write and submit a letter to the NYTimes that Rusk calls Crown’s “legacy to the world.” Here are excerpts found online:
“… Having lived close to death for two years, the reasons why there is no peace seem infinitesimally flimsy. Russia wants the Dardanelles, Yugoslavia wants Trieste, the Moslems want India, labor wants more wages, capital wants more profit, Smith wants to pass the car in front of him, Junior wants more spending money. To these I say, is it necessary to kill and cripple human beings for these petty gains?
“Anyone who thinks a human body is so cheap that it can be traded for a tract of land, a piece of silver, or a few minutes of time should be forced to listen to the moans of the dying night and day for the rest of his life.
“… As long as our individual morals remain at a low ebb, so will be the world. … If man wishes peace again, he must return to the great Commandment, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself'” …
The workshops through which Crown learned to write were organized by a young writer-illustrator named Henrietta Bruce Sharon.
Sources:
A Parapalegic’s Legacy
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/issues/pe-rusk.htm
Henrietta Sharon Wed, Author Becomes the Bride Here of Carroll Aument Jr.
New York Times October 11, 1947
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