Growing up holiness, fighting polio, still aerobicizing at 80

ELIZABETHTOWN – Once upon a time, there were three sisters who were all born between 1935 and 1943 on a farm in Bladen County and who have lived very interesting lives.

Where would one go to find these sisters with the fairy tale life? You might want to start at the gym.

Delma Autry-88, Helen Hollis-86 and Dorothy McKoy-81 can be found Monday through Thursday at Dream Works which is a fitness club in Elizabethtown. They have spent their lives living and working in North Carolina.

“We grew up on a small farm in here in Bladen County,” McKoy said. “We grew the main crop, tobacco and then peanuts, picked cotton and corn. We were a family of 10 (five girls and five boys) growing up. Of all the jobs we had to do as children, I hated shakin’ peanuts and I wasn’t that crazy about picking cotton.”

They are sisters that don’t show their age and sharp as three new tacks.

On the farm the family also raised cows, hogs, mules, chickens and turkeys.

“I can remember when we took the first group of hogs out to sell,” McKoy said. “One of my sisters, she was just so distraught because she knew where they were going.

“It’s just the good Lord and exercise,” Autry said.

“I never could pick 100 lbs. of cotton,” McKoy said. “Then one day, I picked 100 pounds and was so excited. The next week I got sick with polio. And that was the last time I ever picked cotton.”

Poliovirus Type 2, was eliminated in 1994. It was 1959 that McKoy was diagnosed with the disease and left physical disability that she has lived with throughout her life.

“I guess I beat it,” McKoy said. “I graduated high school, (Bladen Central) I graduated from Western Salem State University with honors, and taught school for over 30 years.”

The girls had parents that put a premium on education and they remember fondly their father who was not only a farmer, but a holiness preacher who pastored Evening Light Holiness Church in Garland and also pastored Pleasant Hill Holiness Church in Elizabethtown. In addition, he did some work at the FFA camp in White Lake. Their mother was a fun-loving mom who taught the girls how to take care of a family, but also taught them how to enjoy life.

“My father was a holiness preacher,” McKoy said. “So we grew up with good morals and we had a stay-at-home mom. I was in the choir at church and taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School as well as being in charge of the youth group at the church.”

Growing up in the church with their daddy as pastor gave them lots to do.

“I wasn’t in the choir when I was young, but as I got older, I did sing in the choir,” Hollis said. “Although I don’t sing very well, I still tried.”

To which, McKoy responded to her sister, “God won’t ask, ‘can you sing?’ He’ll ask you, ‘did you sing?’”

McKoy, who never married always has the heart of a child care provider. Whether it was teaching in the Bladen County school system or babysitting her sister’s children.

“I taught school here for 30 years,” McKoy said. “I started teaching at Booker T. Washington in Clarkton before I moved to Hickory Grove which was a little school on the Sampson County line. When that closed, I moved to Bladen Lakes which was a new school. And that’s where I retired. In my career I taught third, fourth and fifth grades.”

McKoy also did a lot of volunteer work for 4-H and was the first person from Bladen County to be inducted into the North Carolina 4-H Hall of Fame. She also did some work for the Cooperative Extension Service and was the first African American to serve as state president for the extension and community association.

Any illness during that time could be tricky to treat or conquer, but when the word “polio” was uttered back before the polio vaccine became available in 1955, people knew it could be a death sentence. Although McKoy contracted the illness in 1959, they were still battling.

“I remember having this extreme headache,” McKoy said. “I went to the doctor and after he checked me out, he sent me to Duke Hospital in Durham. That’s where I was diagnosed with polio.”

“Back in that day, they had an iron lung,” Autry said. “She had to be put into that. It breathes for you.”

McKoy was in the hospital for 30 days, getting home the day before Thanksgiving.

“I was isolated and quarantined in the hospital,” McKoy said. “When my family came to visit, they had to look at me through a glass. They couldn’t come in for quite a while. It affects the extremities and my one leg is paralyzed below the knee. When I first came home from the hospital I was in a wheelchair. I then graduated to those steel-type crutches. I had to stay out of school for a year. By the time I got ready to go to college, I graduated to a cane.”

Not only was it brutal for McKoy, but also for a caring family. She had taken two polio shots and contracted the disease before she took the third.

“I had a neighbor that died,” McKoy said. “I was a good friend of the family and we had been down there visiting. I don’t know if that’s how I got it or not. I am just thankful that it never really got me down. There were a lot of prayers going up, and I never got depressed or anything like that.

Autrey was already married when she first heard the news.

“During that time, we knew that polio was circling,” Autrey said. “When it surfaced, they gave us something like a sugar pill. It was horrible seeing Dorothy like that. I remember when she was back home recovering. I would get her up and take her to Fayetteville to shop. So, she had braces and crutches. What I would do is get out of the car in the middle of the street and stop the traffic so she could get crossed the street. But you sure couldn’t do that now.”

Hollis, who also recalled that trying time for the entire family was reminded of how she first came back from Ohio where she was teaching to care for her younger sister.

“My mother said that I needed to come home to help Dorothy,” Hollis said. “So I did, but I was supposed to help her because she needed to lose weight. It did not work, because we ate the diet food and we ate the regular food. Her illness was scary, but she was so determined. She had those braces and things on her legs and she would be in bed. And when she wanted to get up, somebody had to help her. I remember one day my family was killing hogs and she wanted to get out of the bed. I don’t know if I was just being mean or what, but I did not help her. So, she called Delma’s sons and they came and helped her out of the bed.”

McKoy gathered some inspiration from a very wise doctor that made her make up her mind as to her future.

“I had Dr. Amos Johnson from Garland,” she said. “And at that time, he was president of the North Carolina Medical Association. He was the one who helped get me into Duke and he told me, ‘I don’t want you to become a ward of the state.’ So helped me to do what I needed to do and I guess I just kind of assumed that I would never NOT go on.”

Autrey followed in her mother’s footsteps and married early and became a farmer.

“I was a farmer,” she said. “Let me tell you this. Cotton. It was not one of my favorite things. I had an experience in the cotton fields and I’ll never forget it. I am an old woman and it still bothers me. Worms. And I remember one day we were picking cotton; my mamma had broken a branch off and had a worm on it. She turned it around and showed it to me and I lost my mind. I took off runnin’ and she had to catch me. Ever since then, I have that fear.”

The sisters remain part of their mother’s legacy.

“My mother was very happy and a playful per,” Hollis said. “She taught us games that we still play today. She cooked, and that’s probably why I’m not a cook. She probably had Delma in the kitchen with her and if I was in the kitchen, it was washing dishes.”

A mother teaches so much, and with her death at only 48 years old, she left a lot of things undone, but completed so much in her life.

“She took the time to play with us as children,” McKoy said. “The games stuck with us and I have a nephew and his family living with me and he has two little children. I am teaching them some of the same games that my mother taught me. The games have passed down through the generations. She would have you look up with a toilet paper roller holder to see the stars at night and when you would put up the roll to your eye, she would pour water down the roll. She was a fun-loving person.”

Among other practical jokes that their mother would play, this laughter was what the sisters remembered and cherished all these years.

Delma, the oldest and the daughter that knew her the longest tipped her head and looked back as she spoke.

“My momma,” she said. “She was more like a sister to me. I got married when I was 18 years old and she helped me a lot. She was a mother and a sister to me. And one thing I especially remember is when we ate. There was a large table and a long bench, and they would line us up to eat and we all ate together. She would fix the food, she would bring it and she would serve it. When I lost my mother, I lost a best friend. It took a long time to get over it.”

As far as working out, the girls, always very close knit began over a decade ago in a program called “Silver Sneakers” which was an aerobic program for seniors. When that ended and the teacher left for other endeavors, “Curves” was the popular workout program.

“We worked out on the machines that were here,” McKoy said. “The first day that they started the chair aerobics, we were here. We must have been going here 15 years.”

A friend who has been with the sisters throughout all of their workout exploits is Eleanor Cunningham who first contacted the Bladen Journal as to the story.

“They have such a wonderful story to tell and Dorothy has gone through so much and always has a smile on her face,” Cunningham said. “Since they have been working out, I have seen the improvements in their physical bodies. Especially Dororthy who has gone to a mobile device and just zips in and out of here. She is an inspiration.”

One of the things that the girls have always clung to was the teaching of their father – the loving pastor.

“I still go to Evening Light Holiness Church,” McKoy said.

Evening Light Holiness Church was established in the early part of the 20th century. The people of Hayestown had a desire to have a church in their community. Mr. Tom Hayes donated a plot of land on which the church could be erected. The sons of Mr. Wesley McKoy along with some others in the community took on the responsibility of building a church.

When commenting on their church upbringing and them wearing earrings, they commented how the church had made great changes, but spoke to the love in which their father preached.

“My daddy, even though he was a holiness preacher, he did not teach that,” McKoy said. “He did not harp upon what you wore or things like that. He taught that God was not looking at what you’re wearing, but He’s looking on the inside.”

The love and admiration with which they spoke of their father brought tears.

And through it all for these sisters and especially McKoy who has beaten such great odds, she has kept such a positive outlook.

“Sometimes I wonder,” McKoy said. “Why was I the one to have polio? But for everything God has a reason.

To add to all the accomplishments of McKoy and in her years of service, it has not gone unnoticed.

In 1996 she received the North Carolina State Friend of Epsilon Sigma Phi’s honorary extension Fraternity award and in 1999 She received the Governor’s Outstanding Volunteer award from then North Carolina Governor James Hunt.

They have grown right along with Bladen County and have been through World Wars, American civil unrest, the death of presidents and the invasions such as Pearl Harbor and 9/11. For their backgrounds, they are so willing to stop and fellowship with you. Perhaps it’s time to pull up a chair at Dream Works Bladen and explore aerobics from a chair.