She was raised in Caroline Township, close to Mt. Carmel Road. She walked a mile to the Mt. Zion school which sat on a hill by the Mt. Zion Church. The school consolidated with Center Point school and was called "Oakland."
One of her first paying jobs was picking cotton. She got a dollar and a nickel for every 300 pounds she picked. She earned 35 cents a day for hoeing the cotton. This was after her father had died and the family moved to Pettus where they sharecropped on the Jack Wheat place.
After, they moved South of Lonoke and she attended Litton school for two years and then Eagle school located on Bevis Road.
Walking was their mode of transportation. She would walk eight miles just to go to Lonoke.
During the depression of the late 20's, early 30's it was really hard for her mother raising 6 kids. Myrtle and her brother Jack had to stay home from school and pick cotton for 5 cents a pound.
Myrtle tells of working for the W. P. A. She said people would work at the schools, at the library and at the Courthouse. Myrtle helped repair books and proudly reported, "I repaired my great granparents' Bible at the Courthouse, a Greek Original."
