Fighting the good fight
BY DONNA SCHWARZ
Myrtle Breeding is known to the life time residents of Riverdale as “The Queen.”
She has received that title because she is the longest living resident in Riverdale.
To say that Breeding’s journey through life has been a difficult one, would be a
severe understatement. In the midst of the series of unfortunate events she has seen over the years, she counts herself as blessed.
Myrtle or Myrt as she prefers, “because it makes me feel young again,” was born Aug. 17,
1935, on her grandmother’s birthday, alongside her identical twin sister, Myldred. Myrt being the oldest by a few minutes. Her father was a farmer to the east of Falkirk mine and she attended a one room schoolhouse in Underwood until the eighth grade. Most the students were relatives, totaling about 15.
In 1945 Myrt and her sister were diagnosed with polio at just 10 years old.
“We really suffered that summer. We couldn’t walk. We had severe headaches. Our parents brought us up to Riverdale every day to the hospital that was here. We got some kind of injection, but I have no idea what it was. We just never asked. My dad had to carry us into the clinic, one at a time. Then back home to bed, shades down because the darkness would help with the headaches. But thankfully, I can walk somewhat now,” Myrt said.
Riverdale hospital visits were just a small stepping stone for what was to come.
Over the next several years Myrt underwent a total of 29 different surgeries, 13 of them spine surgeries, due to polio. When her parents were not taking the sisters to the Riverdale hospital, they doctored in Garrison.
