Dianne Odell, who was known as the nation's oldest survivor of polio to be living in an iron lung, died today. She was 61.

 

Odell wrote a book, "Blinky Less Light," about the smallest star in heaven. The children's book, which took Odell 10 years to finish, has almost sold out of the 100,000 copies printed. She took courses at the University of Tennessee before attending Freed-Hardeman University, where she studied psychology.

Odell had been visited by many celebrities throughout the years, including actor David Keith, former Dallas Cowboy Cliff Harris, and Jane Seymour, known for her role as "Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman."

Seymour had stayed in touch with Odell for several years, and it was through her that Odell got a chance to encourage a "super man."

In an interview last year, Odell said that she once talked to the Seymour's late best friend, Christopher Reeve, who was famous for portraying Superman in four movies. She said that in that telephone conversation, Reeve, who had recently been paralyzed after being thrown from a horse, asked her how she kept her spirits up.

"I told him, 'I pray for strength,'" she said in an interview last year. "After we talked, he told me, 'Well, I have to go now. They're calling me in for dinner. It's been a joy talking to you.' I was breathless talking to him."

Odell had said she usually told people that they needed the three F's to make it in life: faith, family and friends.

"You can't have one without the other," she said. "I would also tell others who are facing situations (like mine) to never give up because there's always something over the horizon. God knows what that is, and you can't give up."

Odell's funeral arrangements are incomplete.

 

Memorials can be sent to

Dianne Odell Fund

West Tennessee Foundation

708 West Forest

Jackson, TN 38301