My sister was vaccinated in 1969, just before her first birthday.
Although we were a civilian family, and lived in a civilian
neighborhood, my father did work for the military and we lived
surrounded by many military installations.  I was told that they
preferred to vaccinate babies "because they couldn't scratch."  (I was
12 at the time and remember thinking that the reasoning seemed a bit
odd.)  However, they also vaccinated my little cousins of the same
age--perhaps because they were in our ring?  Perhaps because they also
lived in a military town?  Perhaps because it was the local custom?  I
have no idea if I was that young or older at the time of my first
smallpox vaccination, because I do not remember it.

We also had new neighbors who had been born at home in the country (all
10 of them) who were forced to get smallpox vaccinations when they moved
to my neighborhood and entered the school system as pre-teens and teens.
Two of the girls were near my age.  This was just after my sister's
vaccination, so that would put it around 1969-70.  These were very
graceful girls, and bore it with almost no complaint, being content to
show me their scabs and tell me they desired to scratch.

My experiences are probably unique to living on Point Loma in the 60's
and 70's, but then, more than a few people did. Of course, we thought
everyone's experience was similar to our own, which this discussion
shows is not true.  I wonder if there had been any smallpox "scare"
around that time which the children were not privy to.  After all,
bioterrorism has been around since we catapulted corpses over castle
walls and distributed infected blankets to the North American native
population.

Arly Helm, MS, IBCLC

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