Louise Maravola was born in August of 1960 in Youngstown Ohio. Louise is the fourth child of five. She has two older brothers (Jack & Larry), one older sister (Carmel) and is four years older then a younger sister (Penny). She is the Daughter of Andrew and Viola Maravola.

As a toddler with big brown eyes, very curly brown hair and a prize winning smile! Louise seemed to be a very skinny, healthy and hyperactive eighteen month old. But unbeknown to her parents little Louise had a vitamin deficiency called Pica. Which made her want to chew on things that did not really taste very good! She chewed on her crib rail, the phone table, the window sill, and a few other very odd places.

One day little Louise started choking and convulsing, her mom rushed her to hospital. Louise had Lead poisoning! Back in the sixties lots of the houses were painted with lead based paints, so she was ingesting the lead from the paint every time she chewed. Things looked very grim, lead poisoning was very rare and there was no treatment for it in the United States. Louise's mom called the Church and Rev. Moholland came to the Hospital and prayed over the little girl who was clinging to life.

There was another little boy at the hospital at the same time in the very next room. He also had Lead Poisoning also, but died. Terror struck Louise's Mother the thought of her little girl dying was just too much to bear. Louise's parents told Dr. Shapiro to do whatever she could to save their little girl!

Dr. Shapiro had to order a special medicines from England. In the mean time Louise was in the Hospital still having violent convulsions. When the medicine did arrive it had to be giving intravenously very, very slowly over many weeks. Mass quantities of liquids were giving also to help flush the lead out of her little body. Blood was drawn regularly to see if the Lead levels were declining.

When the Lead levels did start to drop the convulsions soon ended. Everyone at the hospital was very excited. Everyone had been praying for Louise to pull through, seemed as though the whole staff knew Louise and what room she was in.

Dr. Shapiro started talking about Louise being released to go home. She still had concerns because of the Medicine being so new to her and the United States what long term effects that it would have on Louise. She did informed Louise's mom that their might be a chance of some Mental Retardation, she was unsure if Louise would make it to her teens or be able to have children.

Louise was in the hospital for over sixty days. Her mom says that Prayers and Modern Medicine saved her daughter's life. Dr. Shapiro said that she would not be surprised if Louise would not end up in the Medical books in the future.

The Youngstown Vindicator Newspaper sent out a reporter when Louise went home. There was a big write up about the chewing toddler who is "The Little Girl That Lived" and it made the front page. In the picture on the front page was Louise's Mom, Rev Moholland and a little smiling Louise!

I am doing pretty good. I just celebrated my 48th birthday. I do have two sons (Danny 31 & David 27). Who were born by natural child birth. I just Celebrated my sixth Wedding Anniversary with my husband Carl. I am a Christian that is a proud member of Austintown Baptist Church In Austintown Ohio and I sure did beat any odds that I was given!