When it’s nice outside, you can probably find Margie Linn gardening on the porch of Vancouver’s Rite Choice Ventilator Speciality adult family home.
She’s got a fairy garden, hydrangea, honeysuckle and clematis to tend to. If Linn isn’t gardening, she’s probably painting in the living room at the family home, which has partially been converted into her art studio.
“I lose myself completely” in painting, Linn said. “It’s the like the time flies by. I don’t even know the day is gone. When you have a passion, you can just get lost in it because you enjoy the whole process, and then you’ve got a result afterward.”
These are just a few examples of how Linn, who turns 79 this week, has kept her independence, despite being in a wheelchair and on a ventilator to help her breathe. Overcoming setbacks and staying independent is a theme in the Portland native’s life that began after she was diagnosed with polio at age 13 in 1953 — one year before injections of the polio vaccine were given to a group of students in Pennsylvania.
When polio struck, Linn spent a week isolated, only able to visit her parents through glass. At first, Linn was naive and believed polio would be like the flu or an ordinary sickness. But instead it robbed her of the ability to walk.
Still, she went on to become a recreational swimmer and graduate from Lewis & Clark College, well before the college nestled in the hills of Portland implemented measures to help people with physical disabilities. Linn was able to get a ramp installed in her dorm room, but not outside of it. And not much changed during her time there.
Linn later sat on an Oregon steering committee to help the state improve its infrastructure for disabled people.
“I became passionate about making things accessible in public settings wherever you go so you can be independent,” Linn said.
After college, Linn became a secretary at a church, and then a few years later married George Linn, now her husband of almost 54 years. They raised three kids and built a house that allowed Linn full independence and accessibility. Linn swam in her free time, but seven years ago, she encountered another setback to her independence: she contracted pneumonia.
Once again, similar to polio, Linn thought this would be easy to recover from. Instead, she was never able to regain normal breathing, and was placed on a ventilator. Linn has since moved into Rite Choice, away from her husband, who can’t live with her at Rite Choice.
It was another hit to Linn’s independence, but she quickly found out the staff at Rite Choice would try to empower her independence as much as they could. They allowed her to use the living room for painting, and they even hosted an art show for her on Friday. She also has a small gardening area she uses on the back porch.
Faia Stevenson, who owns Rite Choice and another ventilator home next door called Better Options, said the goal with those two homes is to make it a fun place to live. Stevenson said she admires Linn’s commitment to being active.
“She loves life,” Stevenson said. “She’s curious and she wants to participate. We’re striving for them to be as independent as possible.”
Linn said the staff backs her up and “doesn’t encourage just vegetating and doing nothing” if someone can be active. When Linn was diagnosed with polio, it was her mother who helped push her through sadness and isolation, a time when Linn wanted to confine herself to the backyard.
Linn’s mother and pastor also pushed her to attend Lewis and Clark, even though she returned from a college visit there crying because of how difficult it was to maneuver around the campus. When she graduated, Linn said she felt like she could have succeeded on any campus. She had been made tougher by the experience, she said.
At first Linn disliked her mother’s tough love approach, but she now knows how it made her stronger.
“Now I totally appreciate what she did for me,” Linn said. “She didn’t coddle me one bit.”
