Janet Berry Elementary School

Janet Berry Elementary School

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Janet Lee Berry - The Person

Janet Berry was an invalid for thirty-nine years and endured as well as transcended the effects of a crippling disease. She was born on April 3, 1935 and died on July 22, 1985. The following is a synopsis is taken from her autobiography, From an Altered Angle, which is found in the school library.

"Janet’s parents were both descendants of long-established New England families. Hope was the sixth child of Fred (Frederick) Clark and Lilla May Bean. The Clarks were a leading family of West Medway, Massachusetts. Fred, a farmer’s son, became the owner of a grocery store, did community service and became a state representative. Hope graduated from Boston University. She met Andrew at a Boston University theater party, through Andrew’s sister Ruth.

Andrew was the oldest child of Charles Berry and Lexie MacDonald. His father taught thermo-dynamics at MIT. Andrew entered Harvard at fourteen to study mathematics for the B.A. degree, and stayed there until he had completed his Ph. D. degree (1929). From 1929-31, he was a National Research Fellow, first at Brown and then at Princeton. From 1931-1935 as instructor and from 1935-1941 as assistant professor, he taught mathematics at Columbia. In 1941 he brought his wife and two daughters to Appleton, where he had been appointed associate professor of mathematics at Lawrence University by President Barrow.

Janet was six at the time. She entered first grade at Edison School and enjoyed a normal childhood, sharing household responsibilities and happy family rituals with her older sister, Barbara. Tragedy struck when she was eleven. In the summer of 1946 on a family visit to her grandparents’ home in West Medway, she somehow contracted dermatomyositis—a disease so rare that it wasn’t diagnosed until she was sent to Milwaukee Children’s Hospital in the late fall. The chances of getting dermatomyositis were one in 300,000. No one is certain about the cause. Possibly it results from hypersensitivity to external factors, like an allergy. Perhaps it is caused by a virus. Because of its rarity, no one has done the research to find out.

The disease is an inflammation of the tissue around the arteries which, in chronic cases, causes contraction of the muscles and thickening of the skin. In Janet’s case, there were calcium deposits in the skin and her muscles gradually withered up, tendons shrinking, so that her whole body contracted towards the most powerful muscles, the ones that produce the fetal position. Doctors tried traction on her arms and sand bags under her knees, but to no avail. Initially she was treated with penicillin in bees’ wax, injected into the skin. After a year’s remission, when the disease returned in full force, several other experimental drugs were used. In 1950 an eight-week intensive treatment with ACTH (adrenotropicortic hormone) seemed to kill the infection, though in fact it had only arrested it. Following hospitalization, she underwent three years of home treatment involving softening, then removing the hard shell of skin that had formed, in order to treat the ulcerating sores beneath it. Spiking fevers accompanied by dizzying pain eventually killed the infection. Finally Janet regained normal awareness, but all her organs had been affected. The miracle is that she lived as long as she did—fifty years.

From an Altered Angle describes Janet’s response to this disease: her struggle for life, her struggle for growth, her struggle to find meaning and purpose for a body and soul that had been cut off from the usual; avenues of work and communications. In 1974, her therapist, Dr. Edwin Olson, suggested that she write a book about her experiences to aid other chronically ill people and their caregivers. Her initial purpose was "to inform so that there is an easier and richer relationship between the chronically ill and those who live and work with them."

Janet was always supported by her family to live her life to the fullest. She continued to educate herself through distance learning from Lawrence and she volunteered for many years in Appleton. Her final words to her dad on the night she died were "Thank you."

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