Although we know Christina Olson was a well-known friend to Betsy James and later, Andrew Wyeth, she was a significant influence on Wyeth’s art. She has a poignant history because she had a degenerative disease that disabled her from walking, and she lived out her life at the Olson farmhouse. Olson’s disease became a topic of medical inquiry, and many sources say that her disease was muscular-related and possibly that it was polio, but according to medical sources, it could have been a variation of the Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. The disease was for the most part undiagnosed.