Nancy Mathews receives her first COVID-19 vaccination while proudly displaying the 1954 vaccination card and button that declare her a “Polio Pioneer.” (Courtesy photo)

ESCANABA — Nancy Mathews is a pioneer. In 1954, the Ford River resident was among school children who received test doses of the polio vaccine in the 1950s. In 2021, Mathews was among the first in the United States to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

This month Mathews arrived at Bay de Noc Community College’s Joseph Heirman University Center for her COVID-19 vaccination carrying two significant tokens given to her 67 years before. A photo of Mathews receiving her COVID-19 vaccine shows her proudly holding a card and a button — both declaring her a “Polio Pioneer.”

The tokens were given to Mathews and her classmates for taking part in the program by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in 1954. Mathews doesn’t recall any apprehension at the time of her polio vaccination at age seven. She said she took it in stride, as she and her classmates were already used to getting hearing and vision tests. Mathews just assumed it was part of normal school activities at St. John Lutheran Elementary School in Fraser, Mich.

“And of course I didn’t get polio, so therefore the vaccine worked,” Mathews declared.

Once the vaccine was officially launched, Mathews received another dose with her classmates, this time in a sugar cube.

Mathews does not believe medicine is something to be afraid of, nor does she believe doctors should be put upon pedestals. Her intrepid but pragmatic outlook is likely due to growing up among medical professionals. Mathews’s grandfather was a doctor in Maryland, her father an x-ray technician in the Detroit area, and her sister is a physician assistant.

In 1978 Mathews moved to Ford River. As the years passed, Mathews said she thought her school’s participation in launching the polio vaccine was a unique experience. She never expected to experience another pandemic in her lifetime.

When the COVID-19 vaccine recently became available to her, Mathews was game. She said vaccinations were run very efficiently and was impressed with the follow-up surveys she received via text.

The surveys arrived once-daily the week after Mathews’s vaccine and will continue once-weekly until her second dose, 21 days after the first. She said the texts provide a link to a short health survey via a smart-phone app called v-safe.

“Its amazing to think how far we’ve come because of COVID,” Mathews said of the text messages, adding she thinks the changes in the way we’re using our devices is great.

Mathews recommends community-minded people consider using websites such as outbreaksnearme.org to help track local COVID-19 and flu outbreaks. The Outbreaks Near Me website is the brain child of epidemiologists and software developers at Harvard, Boston Children’s Hospital and volunteers from across the technology industry. The site uses crowd-sourced data to visualize maps that identify current and potential hotspots for COVID-19 and the annual influenza season.

Mathews hails crowd-sourced websites such as Outbreaks Near Me as another venue for combining civic duty with the marvels of modern medicine.

“I’m living proof of the value of the value of vaccinations to conquer health conditions that have endangered our citizenry and I encourage everyone to get their vaccinations when directed by the country’s and state’s health officials to help us all begin living a healthy and secure life,” said Mathews.