Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project..

Andrea Brodine, 6, for whose life many have prayed since she was stricken by a deadly paralysis two weeks ago, walked again at the Huntington Memorial Hospital yesterday—supported by a mechanical carrier device but strongly on the road to full recovery.

The little girl’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Brodine, 839 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena, were in despair when she was first taken to the hospital. Their daughter, suffering a type of spinal paralysis, seemed doomed to die.

Then when medical science seemed for the moment helpless, the parents fell back on the faith of simple prayer. They called on friends to join them and devout sympathizers from far places offered spiritual strength.

Yesterday, the age-old power of prayer seemed again to be proven. Andrea, thankful doctors admitted, had been cured.

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The Times reported Andrea Brodine’s illness in October: She became ill in August when she and her 3-year-old sister Pamela were at Lake Arrowhead. First she lost sight in one eye, and then the other. Then her legs became paralyzed. Although she tested negative for polio, she was given sulfa drugs and 40 million units of penicillin, without apparent effect.

The Times apparently never followed up on this story, so Andrea’s illness remains a mystery.

Quote of the day: “Scared? What was there to be scared of? She was just like a bird.”
Hans Espeland, 85, on becoming the first man (apparently) to fly across the Atlantic and back in his stocking feet.