Image: Mike Vanden Bosch / Pattison Media / IHOP supervisor/server Shelly Cox (left) is pictured with Myrtle Macdonald (centre) and her friend Shelly Hilborn Wednesday morning, for Myrtle's 104th birthday celebration at the Chilliwack IHOP on Eagle Landing Parkway.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Birthday celebration

Longtime Chilliwack resident marks 104th birthday at Chilliwack IHOP

Jun 11, 2025 | 12:10 PM

CHILLIWACK — Two women with the first name of Shelly wanted to make longtime Chilliwack resident Myrtle Macdonald’s birthday on Wednesday morning a special one – her 104th birthday no less.

Shelly Cox, a server at the recently opened IHOP on Eagle Landing Parkway, brought celebratory balloons, while Myrtle’s longtime friend, Shelly Hilborn, picked up a floral bouquet and a plant for her – and treated her to a special breakfast Wednesday morning.

“We were so excited she chose IHOP for her birthday breakfast,” said Shelly, the IHOP supervisor and server. “It’s so great it’s her birthday but yet we are the ones who are so excited [to have her].”

Macdonald, a distinguished educator who previously taught nursing in India and published a book entitled, “People Migrations in Europe and America: Nation Building Prehistory to 1913,” looked radiant as she smiled and enjoyed a breakfast of bacon, biscuits and avocado toast with her friend, Shelly.

“I wanted to try IHOP, so I offered to bring her to breakfast to celebrate her birthday,” Shelly Hilborn said. “She’s got a great appetite and she’s doing wonderful. We were neighbours for many years; she lived in my complex.”

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Macdonald said she planned to head to a birthday party in her honour later today.

Macdonald was a pioneer in outpost nursing and under-fives programs, got involved in training community health workers and community mental health. According to her Linkedin profile, Macdonald loved teaching nursing in classrooms, hospital wards and the community, in two universities and three hospital schools. Her other experiences spanned Aboriginal health care, refugees and forensics.