Betty Martin, 89, Found Her Love In Carville Infirmary

She was a 19-year-old debutante in New Orleans, engaged to a handsome medical student and about to celebrate Christmas with her large family when she learned in 1928 that the pale rose spots on her thighs were caused by leprosy. The doctor who gave the news to her mother shouted, "Get her out of here before she infects the entire city!"

No one ever determined how she developed the disease. No other members of her family or friends ever did.

The shame and disgrace of her diagnosis led to a furtive departure on a sunny day in January. Only her fiance and a few members of her family knew she had leprosy and was being sent to the institution in Carville, La.

At Carville, the debutante so feared bringing shame upon her family that she gave an assumed name upon admission. Even today, at 89, she will not reveal her real name.

Today she is frail, with hands so slight that they feel like they could break with a gentle squeeze. She is often confined to a wheelchair and talks very haltingly, but smiles a lot. She lives in one room at the infirmary in Carville, but there are vestiges of her old life: An attendant regularly fixes her hair, does her nails and helps her dress.

When she arrived at Carville, the medical student remained faithful. But time took its toll, and he broke their engagement on her 21st birthday. She found love anyway with a fellow patient named Harry Martin.

"I believe that faith can heal," she wrote in her book "No One Must Ever Know."

The couple's disease continued to progress. Harry developed pneumonia and nearly died. Then researchers stumbled upon sulfones, a new class of drugs. Harry and Betty Martin were among the first few patients to try Promin, the first medication to thwart Hansen's disease.

Twenty years after entering Carville, they were discharged. Betty Martin wrote about her experiences in a book called "Miracle at Carville," which was bestseller in 1950.

The Martins lived for nearly 40 years in the outside world, and for all that time, they guarded their secret. Under their real birth names, they bought a small home in California. Harry found a job as a salesman.

But in 1989, they returned to Carville permanently. Federal law guarantees free treatment for all sufferers of Hansen's disease, and they still had friends there.