VERA RUTH MYER SHEPHERD

VERA RUTH MYER SHEPHERD



My mother , Vera Ruth Myer, was born on Feb. 19,1919, to a german house painter C. Earl Myer and his wife Gladys, in



Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the age of 6 she contracted polio in it's 3 worst forms. Polio, balbar polio and spinal mengitis.



The doctors at the hospital told my grandmother to take Vera home because she was going to die anyway, there was nothing



they could do for her, they also signed a death cetificate to that effect. Gladys had been a nurse so she took her little girl



home, Vera could not swallow, so my grandmother fed her beef bullion to keep her alive.



The next door neighbor was a chiropractor, which in 1925 was like a witch doctor,



he said " Seeing Vera is going to die anyway, why don't you let me work on her?"



My grandmother agreed. The neighbor adjusted her neck, and mom could swallow. He countinued to give Vera



adjustments and soon she could move her neck, later her left arm, then her left leg, then her right arm and right leg. Her



body did not get well though, her body twisted and turned. She was in a children's ward a lot of her young life, they operated



on her back , taking a bone out of her leg and putting it into her back for strength.



"I never felt sorry for myself " Vera said " I was in a childs ward, and no matter how bad I seemed there was always some



one else worse in that ward."



She had operation after operation trying to straighten her back, but nothing worked, it continued to twist and turn. She



should have been 5 foot 6 and she was 4 foot 11. They made a brace for her to wear during the day, it went from just under



her breast to half way down her hips.



Vera's mother would say to her "You can do that , your not crippled."



My mother said she would think " Yes, I am."



During her stay in the Gillette State Hospital of Minnesota my mother read, because there wasn't much else to do. By the



time she was 15 she had read all the books in the library, including the dictionaries and retained most of it. Mom knew the



name and authors of every book she had ever read and the contents. On and off she would go home , where her and her



brother Alan would sometimes have to hide on the fire escape when their Dad came home drunk and started breaking up the



house hold.By the time she was fifteen she was home permanently. Right about that time her brother Owen Myer was born.



She met my Dad, Herb Shepherd, at a dance in 1939, he was fascinated with her, anyone who met my Mom forgot she



was crippled after knowing her for a short time. They went out for awhile,then he asked her to marry him. She agreed to



marry him, with the understanding, if they didn't get along , she would divorce him. They ran away to Watertown South



Dakota and got married.



It was during the Great Depression so there wasn't much money around, they had a car but no money for gas. My Dad



got a job driving truck which he had learned in the President Rosevelts C.C. camps for kids. When he would bring home the



pay check, they would put enough gas in the car to drive to Loring Park which had a Lake in the middle of the park.



My Mom got pregnant, which was really scary, because with her spine the way it was they didn't know if she could carry



me to full term. She couldn't wear her brace while she was pregnant, but that didn't stop her from getting around. June 1st



1941 I was born, 2 weeks early.



Mom said " You bounced down every vertabrae of my spine."



I was an only child, needless to say! Because of her brace she couldn't hug me to her breast, so she would lay me on a



table and put her arms around me. Pearl Harbor was attacked when I was 6 months old, all the men of the nation went down



and enlisted. My Dad was not taken because my Mom was crippled and he was needed at home.



She said " I really limped that day, when I went before the enlistment board." Money got easier after that and Dad was



still helping out on the home front, driving truck with the materials that were needed for the war effort. My Mom joined a



U.S.O. to help out.