Retirement bittersweet for maternity nurse's 55-year career

Alex Simone, St. Joseph News-Press, Mo.
·2 min read

Feb. 23—Bonnie Dundee has delivered thousands of babies in the nearly six decades she spent as a nurse in the maternity ward at area hospitals, but now she's moving on from health care.

Dundee worked 35 years at Mosaic, extending back to when it was Heartland Health, and spent 20 years before that at Missouri Methodist in St. Joseph. She said retirement will be a difficult transition because her relationships with coworkers extend well beyond the walls of the hospital.

"I work with a great bunch of people," she said. "I love my OB family, and I feel like we always get the support we need. So it's going to be difficult to not come to work every day, but I think it's time that I can do some other things."

Dundee's experience has proven to be a valuable asset, and she even was one of the nurses who helped teach the ins and outs to Mosaic Director of Pediatrics and Obstetrics Emily Spencer during her early days.

"She's irreplaceable. She has been a resource to every nurse on that unit, including myself," Spencer said. "She was one of my preceptors. Pretty sure (she was) in the room with at least one, if not both of the girls who took care of me. She's the example of what a nurse should be, and we're all better for having worked with her."

Dundee's coworkers in the Labor and Delivery Unit showed their appreciation Wednesday by surprising her with a retirement party. There were signs in the days prior, but Dundee said it still caught her off guard.

"I accused Emily of doing this," she said. "I really wanted to just, kind of, fade out into the sunset. And they aren't letting me, no."

There were few operational changes for maternity nurses during Dundee's time, but one significant change that was a positive step was allowing more family members to be on-hand for a child's birth.

"I love taking care of the moms and the babies," she said. "It's so nice now that the dads get to be on the unit to see the whole family unit and see the joy when that baby comes."

Many hospitals did not allow fathers to be present for childbirth until the 1970s, according to NPR, which was a few years after the start of her career in 1968.

Dundee does not have any immediate plans for retirement. She looks forward to visiting her family members and anticipates the literal fruits of her labor from her garden at home.

Alex Simone can be reached at alex.simone@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter at @NPNOWSimone.