Alive since '05... 1905

Mrytle Appel has seen a lot. After all, she's 100 years old. When she was born in 1905, the Russian revolution broke out when two hundred thousand Russian workers marched on Tsar Nicholas II's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and were fired upon by Czarist troops who killed hunreds, and an obscure physisist living in Switzerland published his theory of relativity and etched the name Albert Einstein in history. The Japanese completely defeated the Russian Navy in the Battle of the Straits of Tsushima. The Russian fleet was defeated by a fleet led by Japanese Admiral Tojo. The Japanese sunk almost the entire Russian fleet. An agreement was reached in Portsmouth under the aegis of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Norway's Parliament voted to declare the dissolution of the Union with Sweden, and in Daytona Beach, a car first broke 100 mph.

She was born and raised on a farm near Stockton, Ill where she was a homemaker. Her husband William died in 1975, and in 1981 she moved to Milan to be near her son who was stationed at the Rock Island Arsenal.

Former state Sen. Denny Jacobs, current state Sen. Mike Jacobs, Rock Island County Clerk Dick Leibovitz and government representatives from Silvis and East Moline showed up to wish Ms. Appel a happy birthday.

It's not really a party until the Jacobs' show up.

Dispatch/Argus Photo: Dan Videtich

Myrtle Appel, bottom left, and her great-granddaughter, Tonya Dennison of Milan, look over a copy of Ms. Appel's birth certificate which was presented to her at her 100th birthday party at Forest Hill Nursing Home in East Moline Sunday afternoon. Looking on in the background, from left, are East Moline Mayor Pro-Tem Crotis Teague; Illinois Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline; and Rock Island County Clerk Dick Leibovitz.