57-Year Survivor ... and Friend
 

This article is in our local paper today. Hilda is a 57-year survivor!! She even had a recurrance in 1992. When I was born in 1953, her family lived on our block. I went to grade school and high school with all three of her children. Hilda was sweet enough to come with another "old neighbor" to my Mom's funeral in 2005 -- an hour's drive away -- when she was 91. In all these years, I never knew she had breast cancer. She is the definition of Hope and Survival and Joy ... and incredibly wonderful Quality of Life!


Survivor Overcame Cancer Twice

July 15, 2009


Hilda Poppe relaxes at her apartment in Sherburn. The 95-year-old great grandmother has survived two bouts with cancer, the first coming in 1952.


SHERBURN - You hear about 5-year cancer survivors, 10-year survivors, even 20-year survivors. One 95-year-old great grandmother in Sherburn, though, has survived 57 years since her bout with breast cancer, and defeated another round 40 years later.

It was 1952, and Hilda Poppe, a hairdresser and busy mother of two little girls, was expecting her third child. She was about five months along in her pregnancy when she discovered a lump in her breast. Being 1952, women weren't aware of breast cancer like they are now, but Hilda had learned from her sister-in-law that it could be a sign of something bad.

They waited until the baby, Gerald, was born, and then took action. Her doctor did a biopsy and found it was cancer. She had a mastectomy in Trimont, then had 24 X-ray treatments in the course of one month in Mankato, while her mother-in-law took care of the baby and her nieces helped care for her small daughters, Marilyn and Eileen.

"Many prayers were going up," said Hilda, still sharp, neatly dressed and coiffured, and living on her own in an apartment in Sherburn.

She's a sweet, modest woman, who was worried people would think she was making too much of herself by agreeing to do this interview, and who frequently said, "Don't put that in."

Survival rates for breast cancer patients in the 1950s were lower than they are today, and treatments were less sophisticated. Cancer was, for many people, a death sentence.

At the time, she thought, "It's all in the Lord's hands. I just wonder how it'll turn out," she said. Back then, they didn't do therapy after surgery, and Hilda's arm was slack for about a month - not easy for someone with three small children who did hair for a living.

She recovered, and many years went by - Hilda raised her children, ran her business (she remembers when she charged $10.50 for a permanent) and went about her life.

In the intervening years, she had other surgeries, and cancer took a toll on her family. In 1998, she lost her husband Clarence, who had been a smoker, to lung cancer. She's also lost two brothers to the disease - Alfred to brain cancer, Leo to cancer of the esophagus, and another brother, Martin, suffered colon cancer but didn't die from it.

In 1992, 40 years after breast cancer, Hilda went to Rochester for a bladder repair. She had come back home where her doctor called and said, "How come you went back home? You come back. We found something." She had developed cancer in the other breast and in her uterus.

"They took it all," she said, followed by radiation treatments. When she was ready to go home, her daughter Marilyn Poppe and her pastor came to visit her in the hospital, and she was dealt a different kind of blow. She learned her grandson had been killed in a farm accident.

"People couldn't figure out how a body could take all that," she said.

"She got out of the hospital Thursday and went to the funeral Friday," said Marilyn. "We made it through; we pulled each other through.

"I think 99 percent of her strength comes from her Christian belief, and from her German heritage - they're a strong breed."

"She's gone through a lot," said her daughter Eileen Morrow. "And through it all she's been marvelous. She's very caring, very religious. Just a really sweet lady."

Hilda said she handles life's difficulties with her strong faith and with the support of her family.

"I'm so happy with my family," she said. "They've been wonderful, wonderful. I thank God every day for that."

Marilyn said she is not just a mother to her own three children, but has nieces and nephews who call her Mom too.

"She's the nicest lady I ever knew," said Ronnie Studer, who has been friends with Hilda since they became next-door neighbors in 1955. "She always wants to do something for someone else."

The two of them are still neighbors - now in the same apartment building. They've helped each other through the years, and lately Ronnie has helped Hilda by driving her to her appointments.

"She's happy-go-lucky," Ronnie said. "She's full of fun."

All three of her children check in with her regularly to make sure she's OK. Daughter Eileen lives on a farm nearby and calls every day. Marilyn, a travel agent, lives in Rochester and helped care for her she was in the hospital getting radiation in 1992. And Gerald, who works for a TV station in Florida, calls regularly. She wears an alert necklace around her neck to call for help if she needs it.

Since 1992, there has been no sign of cancer, but she admits that once in awhile, if she doesn't feel quite right, she thinks, "Is it that? Is it that?" It hasn't been. Since then, it's been, "so far, so good," she said.

But then she reminds herself, her humor still intact, "There's nothing left to check. They cut everything out."

Oh Abby, what a hearwarming story! Hilda is just delightful. She sounds like someone who could be in one of Garrison Keiller's Lake Wobegon, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average".

Thanks so much for sharing it with us.

Thank you, Alice! Actually, we DO live in Minnesota. And we are all characters in Keilor's books! smile! Hilda is living proof that we do have a few folks here that aren't all Norvegians and Svedes.

In Frost, a nearby town (population 180) where I used to live and all my relatives are from, we have an old athletic field that partially fills with water in one corner every time it rains hard. We lovingly call it Lake OnceInAwhile. Honest.

Town pranksters have been known to "decorate" it now and then: once a clawfoot bathtub showed up in the middle of the "lake", the next day a lady mannequin was in the tub waving to passers-by, once a boat, another time a shark fin, various No Fishing signs, a Lake OnceInAwhile sign, etc.

Uffda! Ya shure, yew betcha, we really dew exist!

LOL!! There is something so special about small town America that is missing in the big towns I have lived in.

I am a Lutheran half-breed!! My mother was German (her first American roots were from Pennsylvania) and my dad was Scandinavian (first American roots were from Wisconsin), a half-breed himself . . . half Norwegian and half Swedish. What a scandal :)

No wonder you are so lovely!

I am 100% Norwegian. Well ... honestly, I am one-eighth Swede but my Mom told me to never tell anyone. wink

Hi Marie!

Yeah, that Minnesota "cute factor" is something I am counting on finally kicking in when I am 95 too! It will be interesting ... all of those 95-year-olds we have running around here are about 5 feet tall. I am 6 feet tall now -- will I shrink that much? But I'm sure glad they all stopped dying their hair blue in the 1970s -- I rather be bald again than look like an old, tall Smurf.

Now go tell Ed he already has the cute factor ... and pinch his cheek lightly!

What a wonderful story! It made my day, laughing!!! Uffda, I am in NW Washington in my 'other house' (NM is "home") in a little Scandanavian town so have learned all about uffda and lutefisk and stamina!!! I am half German and will invite you all to my 90th birthday party!!!

UGH!! I hate lutefisk!!!!!!!!!!

Pssssst, I'll tell you a secret: most Norwegians hate lutefisk too! But that was Rule #2 Mom taught me to never tell the neighbors or relatives!

Lutefisk = Feedah!

Hey Abbeydawg! I'm LOL and I love Minnesota. My husband's from Wayzata and Minnetonka and yes, he hates lutkefish (sp?). I myself don't mind it that much.
Thanks for the post, I needed that today especially.
Love,
Vickie

57-Year Survivor ... and Friend
 

Hilda is a role model for every one of us !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She is a fantastic lady !!!!!!!!

What a lovely lady. Thanks for sharing this inspirational story with us.

Wow! What a wonderful story of strength and grace! She is an inspiration to all of us!

Great story with a full dose of inspiration!!!
Thanks Abby for sharing.

Mysteries
 

Hi Abby,

That lady has a pretty tough hide!

It makes me so curious, to know what "things" she did or didn't do that would keep a cancer away for so long, and what triggered it to come back when it did.

AlaskaAngel

O M G! that is so good to hear. i love articles like this.

Alaska Angel,

The radiation therapies from the 1950's were not so well targeted as today, and the non-affected breast was frequently in the field. Developing a new cancer in the unaffected breast many years after the original radiation treatment was a documented risk of the rads therapy of the time.

Hopeful