Bradford, Vt.
Her family knew something was wrong one morning when she couldn’t get out of bed on her own. Together, they worked to place her on a day bed in their Orford home and called Lyme physician Bill Putnam.
“He didn’t speak because he knew the family so well,” recalled Alayne Lee, McClellan’s younger sister.
Instead, the doctor took up the phone and called Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital.
“I’m calling in a polio patient,” he said.
Like many children who suffered from the virus, which attacks the nervous system, McClellan left the hospital with partial paralysis to her legs, making it difficult to walk. But instead of allowing the disability to limit her future, she chose to carry on.
McClellan married, raised three children, drove to work daily and loved to travel and swim: all life events someone less resolute might not be able to accomplish.
“The tenacity of that woman was incredible,” Lee said. “Everything she wanted to do, she did it.”
McClellan also exhibited courage and a love of life that many close friends and family said they’ll miss after her death on May 29, 2017, at 85.
“I can’t say enough about her perseverance and strength,” said Kristie Tourgee, McClellan’s youngest daughter.
Born Thelma Joy Shaw on March 18, 1932, to Norman and Ara Shaw, of Lyme, she and her family soon moved to Bridge Street in Orford after her father purchased a general store.
As a child, Lee remembers her older sister as “always busy.” Thelma Shaw could often be found riding her bike around town or taking modern dance classes, she said.
“She was an all around very active and well-loved lady in the community,” Lee said.
She also worked as a waitress at the Fairlee Diner and was one of three young women who worked there and came down with the virus in 1948, Lee said.
“Thelma was probably the worst case,” she said,
The ordeal landed McClellan in the hospital for seven months and doctors debated putting her in an iron lung, a machine used to help patients breathe as polio paralyzed muscle groups in the chest.
The news, Lee said, also put her family in a difficult position. People were afraid they could contract the illness from stepping inside her father’s store, costing him business. (The vaccine for the polio virus wasn’t developed by Jonas Salk until 1955).
But McClellan did get better and came home, where her mother was largely responsible for her physical therapy, Lee said.
And it didn’t take long for her to marry. In 1950, she walked down the aisle to Paul McClellan, a childhood acquaintance.
Paul McClellan said the two initially met growing up in Lyme.
“Two little brats in a small town back in the Depression, back in the ‘30s,” he said. “It was hit or miss back then.”
But Paul’s family moved to Bradford, Vt., and the two lost touch until Thelma’s family moved into their Orford home.
Paul said he befriended Thelma’s sister and then got to know Thelma again, hitting off a relationship.
“We didn’t intend to become serious about it. It was something that just progressed along,” he said.
For a time after they were married, the two moved into the second floor of Paul’s family home.
“She was so strong, I remember her coming home with groceries and hauling those up the stairs,” said Larry Coffin, a longtime family friend and frequent guest at McClellan’s family home. They had a television and his family a few houses down didn’t, he explained.
Coffin said the task of bringing groceries home would require McClellan to essentially sit down on the steps and push herself up each one with bags in tow.
“She was a spunky person who did the same as you or any other woman does,” Paul McClellan said.
At the time, ramps and elevators for the disabled weren’t common in the Upper Valley, so performing even basic chores could become difficult, he said. But that never stopped McClellan, who was adamant on living a normal life.
“She just did things she had to do to raise a family, make money, live and meet people, and have fun,” Paul said. “She did just what she had to do.”
Because she contracted polio while in high school, McClellan didn’t graduate in her teens. Instead, she chose to go back to school, obtaining a diploma from Orford High School in 1965.
The McClellans had three children. Chan was the oldest, followed by Dawn and Kristie.
Tourgee was about eight years old when her mother graduated and remembers McClellan speaking at the graduation ceremony. Students who were nearly half McClellan’s age were very welcoming, and a dedicated group helped her out of her car and through the halls every day.
Afterward, McClellan got a job at Equity Publishing Co. in Orford and then T & L Electric in White River Junction, which she would drive to in her own car equipped with a hand brake.
“I had an extraordinary childhood in my mind,” Tourgee said, adding the family wasn’t wealthy but had everything it needed.
Tourgee particularly was fond of horses and remembers her mother following her to equestrian shows.
McClellan took the kids camping and loved to swim in Lake Morey, and the family also took trips to the Caribbean, Colorado and Wyoming.
They even lived in Utah for a short period of time, Paul McClellan said.
“I can’t say enough about her perseverance and strength,” Tourgee said. “She just had a way of making everything OK.”
Because Chan McClellan decided at a young age to be a farmer, Dawn said a lot of responsibilities around the house fell to her. She helpeed cook dinners and clean while her mother and father were away.
McClellan also had a knack for knowing when Dawn planned on sneaking away to read a book, often calling her back right as she was getting comfortable.
“How does she know when I’m sitting down with a book,” Dawn McClellan remembers thinking.
Aside from shuttling around children and her own career, McClellan also helped work on the family orchard.
Paul, who worked full time as a salesman at a local lumberyard, planted apple trees in West Fairlee when Tourgee was young. By the time she was junior in high school, Wind Hill Farm had 1,000 fully grown trees.
The entire family spent weekends helping out, she said, including her mother who acted as saleswoman.
After finishing work at T & L, McClellan began work as a secretary for the Swenson Insurance Agency in Bradford, where she stayed for roughly a decade.
“She was very faithful, very cheerful and very responsible to her job,” said Virginia Swenson, the agency’s co-owner.
McClellan was a favorite among the company’s clients because of her ability to take an interest in people and caring, Swenson said.
“When she came here to work, she was very faithful and she fell into our family beautifully,” Swenson said. “She was a wonderful lady and had a big heart.”
McClellan also grew to love crafts and art after retiring. Dawn McClellan said her mother had a talent for working with her hands, producing several paintings the family still owns.
Although Lee moved away from the Upper Valley, initially settling in the Keene area, she called McClellan often and remembers her enthusiasm to try new things. Lee once taught a painting class and said her sister came down to learn.
“She cried from time to time. She felt badly from time to time but she never used that as an excuse,” Lee said. “She never considered it a disability.”
Coffin also stayed close through the years and said McClellan had a great sense of humor.
“She told things the way they were. She could be blunt about life if that was needed, but not in a mean way.” he said. “If you asked her opinion, she would give it to you and it was usually a good opinion.”
As McClellan got older, she moved south to Keene in 1997 to be closer to family. Ultimately, her disability got worse and she went into a nursing home.
Her obituary was emblematic of Thelma and Paul McClellan’s view of death, Tourgee said.
“Thelma didn’t want any formal services. If you knew her, recall a good memory and spend a few moments with that remarkable woman — it’ll be time well spent,” the obituary read.
So, shortly after her death, McClellan’s family and close friends gathered to share stories and remember the woman who was able to accomplish so much. For Tourgee, it was the sendoff her mother would have appreciated, as opposed to a formal service.
“If you knew her, you didn’t need that because you’d get it,” she said.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.