Wilma Rudolph(1940-1994)

As a child she was often so ill--at one time or another she contracted polio, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, chicken pox and double pneumonia--and bedridden so often that it was thought she would never be able to walk. Polio crippled her so badly that she was home-schooled for the first four years because she had to wear a leg brace that made it virtually impossible for her to walk to school.