But the bright-eyed, blond-haired baby attended his second benefit auction for the Clinic for Special Children Saturday and showed off by sitting up by himself, another thing he wasn't expected to be able to do.


Using an experimental treatment, Dr. Holmes Morton, medical director and founder of the Strasburg clinic, has helped Lewis beat the odds, and his parents from Bainbridge, Ohio, Lorraine and Harvey Martin, are thrilled.


"We don't expect him to grow up, but it's an extension. We didn't expect him to come to the auction again," said Lewis' mother.


"We look at the medicine not as a cure but a step on a road to a cure," she said.


Lewis has spinal muscular atrophy type 1, a fatal disease with no known cure. He has been given more time by the use of the drug valproic acid, combined with the amino acid L-carnitine, said his mother. The Martins had two children die from SMA-1.

Lewis' story was one of many at the clinic's 16th benefit auction held at the Leola Produce Auction on Brethren Church Road, Leola.


The clinic treats children mainly from the Amish and Mennonite communities in Lancaster County with rare, inherited disorders, and Morton, Dr. Kevin Strauss, and Erik Puffenberger, laboratory director, have become known throughout the country and the world for their discoveries of gene mutations and treatments.


"They're worth their weight in gold," Mrs. Martin said. That seemed to be the opinion of the 6,000 or more people who attended the sale that consisted of a half dozen auction blocks and stands selling chicken dinners, barbecue, salad, homemade ice cream, soft pretzels, doughnuts, cookies, pies, cakes, french fries, drinks, milk shakes, pizza, and preserves. There were more than 1,500 registered bidders. The auction brings in one third of the clinic's annual operating budget.


Known for selling unimagined numbers of some items, such as 10,000 doughnuts in a day, the auction has added breakfast to its menu, and volunteers prepared and sold 500 omelets using 120 dozen eggs Saturday.


Handmade quilts are always a highlight of the auction, and this year 89 went up for sale. A handmade pine chest decorated by local artist Daniel S. Esh from Bart and signed by Holmes Morton sold Saturday for $1,100 to a man from Florida.


Morton has celebrity status among the Plain community and others who attend the auction. He cannot walk but a few feet before being stopped by parents of children he has treated, friends and admirers. As he is talking, others who pass touch him on the arm to greet him and say to their children, "Say hello to Dr. Morton."


When he stops and greets children, Morton's face relaxes into an expression of effusive yet quiet joy and deep caring.


He is known for his unabashed emotion when it comes to the subject of the children his clinic treats. And each time he speaks of the children, his voice cracks as he tears up. "Prayers are said and prayers are answered in many ways," said Morton as he began his remarks to the crowd.


He told of how he drove home from Baltimore in the rain 17 years ago and stopped the car to think about what he was going to do after learning he would not get a grant to study glutaric acidemia. He had decided to start the clinic in Lancaster, he said, but he had no idea how he would do it. He said out loud to himself, "If this ever works out, I hope you don't forget what it was like." He said he remembers that day every time he looks out at the crowd at the auction.


"I am often asked what about the clinic after you can no longer work. Does it have a future? The future of the clinic is all around you," he said.


The future is also in Dr. Kevin Strauss, who joined the clinic as a pediatrician five years ago.


In talking about the progress the clinic has made, Strauss pointed to the failures, not the successes, as the impetus. "For every child, we have helped, there is one that suffers at home. For every child that can live a longer and healthier life through our work, there is one that died too young and for whom we could offer no treatment and no hope," he said.


"And I want to say thank you to all of the children who could not be here today. They are present in our minds and in our hearts. They more than anyone show us the way ahead." There were many parents at the auction Saturday who had children who died but who remembered the wonderful care they received.


Naomi and Amanda from from Parkesburg were two.


They met each other in the hospital when their children were born. Naomi's son, Raymond, and Amanda's daughter, Dorothy, died within two months of each other, both at the age of 3 of GM3 synthase deficiency.


"Some people say they feel sorry for the parents to have a child like that … but they don't realize how special they are," said Naomi.


Amanda added, smiling, "Our daughter was totally helpless, but she never complained. All she ever wanted was tender, loving care."


They both raved about the care they received at the clinic, not only while their children were in treatment, but after Raymond and Dorothy died, and the families were grieving. Naomi remembers remarking to her husband once, "We were lucky to have a special doctor [Morton]."


And her husband responded, "We were lucky to have a special child to have a special doctor."