Book Honors Man Who Forever Changed Hampton Beach

Evelyn Thornton and author/retired special needs teacher Michael F. Bisceglia Jr., both of Hampton, New Hampshire, have recently written "To Walk with My Brother," a captivating memoir of Thornton’s late brother, Wayne Thornton.

Wayne was six years old in 1953 when a shocking medical error during
a routine office visit left him a paraplegic for life. Wayne’s subsequent life focused on overcoming the limitations imposed on him both by his handicap and by society’s unease in making room for the handicapped.

"To Walk with My Brother" is a family narrative and a jarring primer on how much perceptions of people relying on wheelchairs have changed in recent decades. On Saturday, June 2, from 1 to 3 p.m., Evelyn Thornton will be signing copies and speaking about the book at the A Taste of New Hampshire Gift Shop in the Hampton Beach Seashell Complex at 180 Ocean Blvd.

Wayne attended elementary school in Carthage, Miss., by means of what may have been the first “virtual school” in America — a house-to-
school intercom system installed through the efforts of local charities and donations from the telephone company.

He had to fight for the right to be allowed to attend public high school, and even as a college student had to enlist the help of the school football team to carry him up and down the stairs to attend class. As Wayne grew up, banks and markets had no wheelchair-accessible counters; sidewalks and government buildings were equally out of reach. Elevators for the handicapped did not exist.

Starting in the mid-1970s, Wayne began spending summers with Evelyn in her adopted town of Hampton Beach, N.H. There, they and a host of local, state, and national groups and agencies came together to raise funds to install the first access ramps at the site to let people in wheelchairs touch the ocean — a literally concrete example of what can happen when motivated people
connect the private and public resources of their community to provide for all citizens.

The memoir also captures the best of small town charity, support, and religious faith that imbued lifelong strength to the Thorntons. The story of family patriarch Melvin Thornton being laid to rest with his shirt sleeves rolled up and ready for work is just one of many touching recollections in this remarkable memoir that will leave readers with a new appreciation of parents and other caregivers.

The print edition publication is scheduled for August 2012, with the ebook version available in June. More information can be found on Thornton’s website.

"To Walk With My Brother" is 208 pages, softcover, with 45 photographs and retails for $20.00. The ebook version retails for $9.99. The printed edition is available from Enfield Publishing and Distribution Company (http://www.enfielddistribution.net/evelynthornton.aspx), ISBN# 978-1-937721-02-2, and the ebook, ISBN# 978-1-937721-05-3, can be purchased from all major online retailers.

Information submitted by Zak Johnson on behalf of Evelyn Thornton and Peter E. Randall Publisher.