SAN DIEGO — Whatever it was that 38-year-old Eleanor Abbott heard and saw in the San Diego polio ward in 1948, whatever visions she took home of the lonely children confined to beds or inside iron lung ventilators had a monumental impact on her.
That impact compelled Abbott to dream up ways to bring some level of joy to the children she saw and heard during her time in the polio ward.
When she returned home to the tiny 900-square-foot Craftsman bungalow she shared with her younger sister in San Diego’s Talmadge neighborhood, Abbott rolled out a long sheet of butcher paper and took the first steps toward creating one of the world’s most popular and enduring board games, which she called Candy Land…