Woman survives polio, COVID-19 to see 100

NOVI — Ruby Krieg, a resident at Rose Senior Living Providence Park in Novi, has seen a century of change. Having lived through both polio and COVID-19, her story is one of survival; “obnoxious,” stubborn determination; and the importance of true love. 

“The thing is Ruby’s got such a mean streak in her that no disease is ever going to get in there and do anything,” joked her son-in-law and birthday buddy, John Douglas. 

Krieg was born on Jan. 10, 1926, in Michigan City, Indiana. After graduating high school, she attended the Teachers College at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.  

As money was tight during World War II, Krieg said she worked a variety of factory jobs during the summers to pay for her tuition. She said in the summer of 1943, she worked as a telephone switchboard operator. The next year, she worked at an ammunition factory tying knots in cords for landmines, and then in the summer of 1945, while working at the Dr. Scholl’s corn plaster factory, she contracted polio at age 19. 

Krieg said she was told the disease was caused by flies at the factory, which didn’t have screens. She said Michigan City had  26,000 residents at the time and that there were over 300 cases of polio that fall. However, she fell ill shortly after arriving back at Ball State for her junior year. 

Krieg said the disease was miserable, but the iron lung machine they used to treat it at the time was far worse. 

She said that she was put in the machine after she failed to follow the doctor’s instructions not to drink water.

“I had a temperature of 105 and they had put a glass of ice water and a wash cloth next to me, and the doctor said, ‘Don’t take a drink, just wet the wash cloth,’ but I was still a teenager and you tell teenagers why you don’t do it. And they put me in the iron lung, and I finally stopped choking because I had taken a drink. He had told me not to, and not why,” Krieg recalled.

She said they told her to just go to sleep at that point, as it was 2 a.m., and she said she told them that she couldn’t sleep in the iron lung and that if she wasn’t going to sleep, no one else in the hospital would. 

“So, I started screaming, and of course (the nurse) thought I was hysterical, which I kind of was, and she slapped me a couple of times, and I said that’s not going to work, and pretty soon the intern, well, now they’re residents, he had been on the other end (of the building) on the second floor and heard me, and he came running in, and he said she has everybody in this hospital wondering what you’re doing to that poor child. I don’t think she needs to be in there. The nurse said, ‘I was told to put her in.’ He said,’ I don’t think she needs it anymore.’”

She said she wasn’t able to talk the next day, but she had gotten out of the iron lung after a little more than an hour.

“I was probably in there a little more than an hour until I woke everyone up screaming,” she said. 

“And that summarizes her personality,” her daughter said with a laugh.

Krieg said the machine was very tight around the neck and one could barely move one’s arms.

“It’s a prison. It was very horrible and I was scared to death. I got out because I was scared. I didn’t want to spend my life in there,” she said.

She was hospitalized for two weeks with the disease, but it left its mark. She didn’t eat for three weeks and lost 22 pounds. She recalled that her first meal after surviving polio was a cup of coffee and a gram cracker square. 

The following summer, the March of Dimes was created to help polio survivors. Krieg told them that she needed money to finish her senior year of college. They said they didn’t give money, but they decided to look further into it, as she only had her senior year left to complete. 

“When they found I had a 3.7 out of 4 (GPA), they said that I was worth saving,” she said. 

The March of Dimes paid for her senior year at Ball State, including tuition, room and board, and $5 a month spending money.

She would go on to teach for five years before marrying the love of her life. They would raise four daughters together in East Lansing, Michigan, and then they moved to Arizona to get away from the cold Michigan winters. After her husband died, she moved back to Michigan in 2021 to be near her daughter. She said she contracted COVID-19 on the flight to Michigan.  

She said she had no idea how or why she was able to survive both illnesses. She refused to wear masks during COVID-19. 

“Probably because I’m obnoxious, I guess,” she said. “You have to be a little feisty. You have to stick up for things and yourself.”

Krieg keeps herself busy these days. She likes to do word puzzles, read, go for walks, listen to music — especially piano and flute — play bingo and 7 up and socialize.

 Her daughter joked that her mom instigates late night parties, as she stays up quite late. Krieg said she does do something unusual in that she keeps her door open so that she can see people walk by, as she has a corner apartment.  

“So, I get people to wave at me and stop in and say hello. That way I don’t have to sit around and look at walls,” she said.

She advises people to get up and do something. 

“Don’t sit on your rear end and do nothing. Get up and walk around, even if you have to walk around the block. Just do something,” Krieg said. “Basically, people are friendly if you’ll be friendly back.”

“She is stubborn. She’s very independent, and when something is hard for her, she figures out a way to resolve it. Whether it’s figuring out how to get something off the floor or something to make her more safe, she figures it out,” Terri Douglas, of Novi, said of her mother.