My Who's Who of Thrivers

The following people were the original thrivers I interviewed for my study. (See the appendix for details of the study process.) My intention for the first two sections of this book is to honor their experiences and to stay true to their own words. I quote from their recorded interviews and write what they said at the time. Since the interviews were conducted more than ten years ago, three of the thrivers—Barry Corbet, Phyllis Rubenfeld, and John Roberts—have died. I plan to reinterview the rest of the thrivers and later publish an update of their lives.

Trying to convey in printed form a sense of their unique personalities is not easy, but I hope these short biographical sketches will introduce you, the reader, to those who are behind the remarkable insights they shared with me about their life journeys. I felt privileged to witness their lives of grace under pressure poetically articulated and hope you will feel the same.

Barry Corbet, Mountaineer/ Magazine Editor (63) Spinal Cord Injury

Barry was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, in a "typical middle-of-the-road" family. His father had several sales businesses in his working years: neon products, import/export, and finance. All Barry cared about was hiking, camping, and biking. He said he was grateful to his parents for getting him involved in Boy Scouts because "the scoutmaster got [him] out of [his] mundane, middle-class kind of life and into the mountains of British Columbia."

He left home at the age of twenty to go to college and worked summer jobs as a mountain guide and ski instructor in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In 1963, he was on the first American team to make the ascent of Mount Everest and was later on the first American team to climb a mountain in Antarctica. College became less important than mountaineering, so he dropped out and started his own business organizing and leading mountain climbing expeditions.

On one such expedition in 1968, he was injured while filming climbers from a helicopter. The helicopter crashed, and he survived, but with a spinal cord injury that forever paralyzed his legs. After his rehabilitation and adjustment to using a wheelchair, he picked up his life where he left off, continuing to manage his mountaineering business. He even white-water kayaked all the rivers of the West. He remarked, "I set out to prove to the world that I might look like a paraplegic, but it really wasn't me."

In his older years, as he became more accepting of himself as disabled, he started a magazine for people with disabilities called New Mobility. As managing editor, he wouldn't allow any overcoming stories of people with disabilities. His philosophy was, "We don't overcome: we work with." After two failed marriages, he now relishes time spent in the closeness of his three children and four grandchildren, "which is all you can ask."

Did Barry thrive because of or in spite of his disability? "In spite of."

Phyllis Rubenfeld, University Professor/ Disability Rights Activist (62) Post-Polio Syndrome

Phyllis said, "I was born in the Jewish ghetto of Brooklyn, New York." Her parents were immigrants from Poland and had relatives killed in the Holocaust. They had little money, her father being a tailor, but she talked about how she and her younger brother grew up in a warm family atmosphere. Her parents emphasized getting a good education, and they told her, "Never be ashamed of who you are. If you have to wash toilets, be the best."

She developed her drive for justice from her parents. She said, "They were vehemently opposed to intolerance of any kind." Her mother marched in civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s and admonished neighbors when they would only complain about unfairness but not take any action to change it.

Phyllis got polio in the epidemic raging through New York City in the summer of 1946. She was nine years old. All four of her limbs were affected. She became isolated from a larger world of experience due to the long rehabilitation process while working hard to regain some use of her muscles. She recalled that it was a nightmare. With painful exercise and surgeries replacing ankle and knee tendons, she was able to walk without the support of leg braces. That was the goal imposed on her, and she was determined to fulfill it. Her arms were weak but functional.

She was isolated even more because she could not walk far and because her parents only had occasional transportation since they owned an automobile jointly with her father's brother. During this time in her life, when most children were out exploring the world and going to school, she studied at home under teachers who came to her. She kept up and was finally able to attend school in fourth grade. The experience of being around other children and the influence her teacher had on her life then made an indelible impression that carried her through to her doctorate degree and her professorship at Hunter College.

When asked if she thrived because of or in spite of...