In the 1940s and 1950s, before the long-term effects of such radiation were known, radium was used to treat hearing loss in hundreds of thousands of American children. A capsule of radium was inserted through each nostril and placed near the eustachian tube opening for several minutes. The intent was to reduce swelling that was thought to be the cause of hearing loss.

Joyce Ann Berger, the subject of this Page One story from the Minneapolis Star, appears to have received such treatment. A brief update follows the story.

‘MIRACLE IN THE SKIES’

Power Dive Brings
First Sounds to Girl

By FRANK MURRAY
Minneapolis Star Staff Writer

New hope for living in a world filled with sound gleamed today in the eyes of a 12-year-old Minneapolis girl who has been deaf since birth.

	The original Star caption for this photo: “Deaf since birth, Joyce Berger now can hear. A power dive in an airplane helped perform the ‘miracle.’ ”

The gleam of hope was also in the eyes of a family friend, a mother who has been losing her hearing for the past 10 years.

In the Otto Berger home, 3916 Thirty-seventh avenue S., they chatted of the “miracle” which a power dive in an airplane had helped to perform.

The girl, Joyce Ann, had just come back from the Faribault school for the deaf with the precious news that she could hear.

She still cannot talk much – except by the sign language – because she has to be taught what the sounds mean and how to control her voice. But the sounds were there all right.

“First I could hear a dog bark. That was at night. Then in the morning, I could hear the birds sing,” she said.

Listening eagerly was the older woman who had just come from the Pacific coast to try the same treatment in the hope that her decline into a completely silent world might be averted or postponed.

She is Mrs. Olive Will, 46, of Oakland, Calif., who had learned through letters that Joyce could really hear.

Mrs. Will hoped there was a chance the same treatment might be of benefit to her.

On the outskirts of the happy group was 20-year-old Bill Hoaglund, 2932 Forty-third avenue S., another friend of the family.

It was to Bill, a pilot, that Joyce Ann turned when her doctors told her that radium treatments were restoring her fundamental ability to hear.

What she needed, they told her, was an application of sudden, terrific pressure that would push the scar tissue away from the ear drums.

Maybe a power dive in a plane might work, they hinted. It had been known to.

Bill agreed to take her aloft.

Three times they flew, Mrs. Berger, Joyce Ann and Bill. The first time they noticed nothing – except their fright. The second time, results were the same.

But the third time Bill went into a roll and Joyce screamed. The sound of the motor had pounded through into her consciousness.

Then, when her mother held a watch to her ear, she was sure she could hear it tick. But the sensation faded when they returned to the ground. That was late in September.

Doctors examined her again and advised that probably the airplane treatment had done about all it could. The thing to do was to go back to Faribault to school.

There, nine days ago, as Joyce lay sleeping in her room, sounds began to break through to her. She awoke with a start, hearing the dog bark – and later the birds.

Doctors there checked her over and sent her back home for a further checkup at University hospitals, where she has been undergoing treatment.

No one is promising anything yet. But Joyce is sure everything is going to be “just wonderful.” And so are her four sisters and two brothers, with whom she was rollicking about the house today.

Joyce is now at about the same voice-talking stage of her younger sister, Sandra, 2½. She knows the rudiments of audible speech, but the sounds surprise her and she lacks confidence.

She finds it hard to segregate sound from sound in the general clatter. She still as to identify and classify them, as a baby would.

But that doesn’t bother her; nor the fact that, even if everything works smoothly, she’ll have to return to Faribault to work through the adjustment period.

The 300 student patients at the school are as “excited as all get out” over Joyce’s experience, Mrs. Berger says.

Mrs. Will took her first flight with Bill Hoaglund Wednesday and is still excited about the possibilities.

Bill took her up for 45 minutes, climbing to 5,000 feet over the river south of the airport and diving three times.

Sipping a cup of hot chocolate with the pilot after the flight, Mrs. Will said it was “a real thrill” and that her ears “seemed to feel a little better.”

Her problem isn’t quite the same as Joyce Ann’s. Hearing in the right ear is totally gone, she said, while that in her left seems to be steadily fading.

But you’d never know it. She’s good at lip reading and succeeds in conversing in an ordinary tone. Doctors told her that a bone pressing on her ear drum is responsible for her diminishing hearing, and that the pressure treatment might possibly help.

Mrs. Will is convinced that it’s worth a try.

OCTOBER 2006 UPDATE: Joyce Ann Berger, now in her 70s, lives in southern Minnesota. She did not fully recover her hearing and relies on hearing aids, but she is able to speak and “reads lips beautifully,” according Joyce Marie Schlossin, an older stepsister who lives in Northfield. “She’s a real talented gal.”

I reached Joyce Ann by phone, but she politely declined, via a TTY connection, to be interviewed.

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