Always the Survivor
Young Candace Grace Weatherby laid in her bed with grand visions in her head. She stared out the small window on the other side of her bed, catching glimpses of routine activity on the farm where she lived. Her eyes often wondered fondly back towards her vanity, where hanging atop the vanity mirror was a pristine pair of pink ballet slippers, in all of their glory. These slippers were for her, and she knew it. She relished the dreams of the day she would be dancing in them.
“Soon,” she thought, down but hardly out. Some how, Candace never seemed to lose hope. She had been through so much in her short life, but she was strong… she was a survivor. That, she knew.
See, Candace had become infected with the poliovirus around her eighth year in this world (her later recollections offered that she contracted the virus somewhere between six and nine years, so we are going to go on a guess of eight years old. Just a sidenote on Candace’s “storytelling” is that she fabricated her own timeline on multiple occasions, later saying she was born in 1927, rather than 1920 as her birth certificate states, leaving holes and occasional confusion in her dating of important events in her life).
Candace’s accounts attributed the virus to a swim in a pond near her family farm with her brothers. Whatever the case, she was paralyzed from the waist down for approximately five years. She was still without use of her legs when her mother died in 1932, two days after giving birth to a stillborn baby.
Her father couldn’t bear the circumstances of losing his wife and having to raise so many children alone. He fled his family, leaving his children with their grandfather, his late wife’s parents.
“One day, my grandfather came into my room with a pair of ballet slippers that he had just bought for me,” Candace later recalled. “He had gotten them two sizes two large for me because he figured my feet would grow that much before I could wear them. He put them on a shelf where I could see them. ‘Candy,” he said, ‘You will dance again.’”
He was correct indeed.
During this time of hardship and the years of relative physical inactivity, Candace had plenty of time to imagine a spectacular life that was awaiting her. Her vivid and even magical imagination floated fun ideas and visions of fame and fortune and even adoration from people of all sorts. She craved recognition and she longed for adoration. She pictured high fashion, shopping sprees, nights out in big cities… New York, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago….
She dreamed of future greatness for herself. She imagined her name in print… in the large metro newspapers. But first, she had to conquer polio.
By the time she was 15, she was largely healed from the poliovirus and once again she was walking and yes, she danced.
Fast forward to Summer of 1949. As Candace prepared for a honeymoon fit for a princess, in London and in Paris and along the French and English countrysides, she boarded the luxury ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth with her new husband. On the arm of her wealthy, ambitious, powerful husband, her thoughts slipped back in time as she briefly remembered the tough times of her childhood. She recalled her horribly boring marriage to Norman Johnson and the life of poverty that she had been delivered into because as much as she adored her grandfather, he nor anyone else who she loved quite knew what a strong survivor she was. Never anyone mind, she knew it… she kept the faith. And she fought her way out of every struggle she was presented with. Now, she was relieved. She was vindicated. And… she was energized.
Candace Mossler was ready to live in the lap of luxury.
After all, she earned it.