'Residents are her life,' said nurse Rhonda

Dignity and compassion her credo

Director of Nursing Rhonda Ware, R.N., will have worked at Moniteau Care Center for seven years this coming July.
Director of Nursing Rhonda Ware, R.N., will have worked at Moniteau Care Center for seven years this coming July.

Lloyd had diabetes. Eventually, his illness took its toll and his legs had to be amputated.

Jessie was Lloyd's wife. They both lived at the same nursing care facility.

Jessie moved into the nursing home to be near Lloyd, even though her health at the time didn't require it.

But, as fate would have it, Jessie's health started to decline.

That's when Lloyd asked for a favor: 'Would you please move my wife's bed closer to mine next to me so I can hold her one last time?'

Lloyd was able to hold his wife when she took her last breath.

Lloyd died two years after Jessie passed.

That's Rhonda Ware's favorite story about her life as a nurse.

"It's my all-time forever moment," she said.

In July, it'll be seven years that Ware, R.N., director of nursing at the Moniteau Care Center, 200 S. Gerhardt, will have worked at the center.

"I oversee all the nursing staff," Ware said. With nursing being such a hard job, sometimes, all her nurses need is to have someone to talk with who understands. "I have really great nurses. My people are good. I sometimes feel like I'm their mom."

But the residents are equally important to Ware.

"My residents are my life," she said. Ware has been known to accompany residents to a funeral, or to restaurants, or to go shopping even on her day off or even create an outdoor, container garden at which residents can enjoy growing their own flowers and veggies. It's also other little things that make a big difference in Ware's mind. One resident loves to eat popcorn and it's not hard to pop a bag of popcorn, she said. She tells her nurses and aides to get to know each and every resident just by talking with them and getting to know them.

"It's just what I do," she said.

"I want to make them happy," Ware said. "I don't have to, I want to."

Recently, she took several residents to Nic Nac Cafe because some of the center's current residents used to work at the cafe. The residents told stories about their memories of working at the restaurant.

"They laughed and laughed. It made them happy," Ware said. "They become our family. I want what's best for them."

And Ware reminds all her nurses all the time they work in the resident's home, the residents don't live where the staff works.

She learned this at a young age. Ware's mom also is a nurse. She was 8 when her mom graduated from nursing school. A week after her mom graduated from nursing school, Ware's dad died.

"It put mom into nurse overload," Ware said. Her mom had three little ones to provide for Ware, who was the oldest, and her two siblings. Her mom also started taking all three of them to work with her when Ware turned 12.

"I even was a candy striper," Ware said. "I loved listening to the residents' stories. Where they had been. What they had done."

Ware eventually became a certified nursing assistant or CNA. Next, she earned her degree as a licensed practical nurse or LPN, and then became an RN, a registered nurse. And she had company along the way. Ware convinced her mom to go along with her to the RN program.

"We were in the same RN school together," Ware said. Mom is now also still working as a nurse.

Next, Ware became a private duty nurse and a jail nurse.

"But I didn't like jail nursing," she said. "I couldn't be compassionate."

So she went back to more traditional nursing again.

To celebrate the nurses at the center for Nurses Week, nurses will receive gift cards.

"Nursing is a hard job," Ware said. "We just want them to know they're appreciated," Ware said.

Her best advice to those interested in becoming a nurse, she said, was that "nursing has to be in your heart something you really want."

Ware has three children -- two daughters and one son.