Barbara is a Staff Nurse in the Health Care Center working Mondays through Thursdays and weekends when needed. She started out working weekends, which allowed her to do volunteer work at her children's school during the week, helping children with reading, math and crafts. "About the time having mom at school with you was no longer appealing to my children, the week day shift became available so I switched over and it has worked out great."

    She considers taking care of the elderly to be in the same category as other "special jobs" like teaching or raising children. In other words, since you are working with our most vulnerable population, these are the most important jobs there are! Part of what she enjoys about her job is, "the chance to help and reassure people, whether it be when someone is dying or to let a family member know that it's okay that Dad now plays with Tonka toys."

    She came here as a favor to a couple of friends, Laurna and Valerie, who worked here. At that time Barbara was working at St. Francis Hospital (she also worked at the City-County Jail for three years) but her friends really wanted her to apply here because they knew they were going to be leaving soon and they didn't want us to be "nurseless". She told them that she wasn't the answer to their problem because, "I'm not a nursing home nurse and probably won't stay long."

    In fact, she almost didn't. The first thing she saw, which almost took her breath away, were nursing hats on some of the nurses, but Carla reassured her, "No, you don't have to wear the hats." Well, she's been here almost ten years and she still gets teased about saying that she probably wouldn't stay. "I did fall in love with St. Simeon's, the staff, the residents, and the Assistant Maintenance Director."

    That would be Dennis Roberts to whom she is now married. "I'll skip the story of how and why we got together -- the stories that circulated in the halls are by far more exciting than anything I could tell about us." They have a blended family of five great kids, Lucus (who joined the Navy) and Lance (who just got a car) both worked here last summer, Allana (is sixteen and the make-up and dressing queen of the world), Ryan (fourteen and loves to fish and hunt), and Roger (just turned thirteen and plans to play football at the University of Oklahoma but doesn't plan to take any classes... and means it).

    Barbara says, "I did some limited travel in my early childhood and plan to do much more in later adulthood - my middle adulthood is devoted to the raising of the children and my husband. She and Dennis got married while on a trip to Eureka Springs. "Even though everyone said they just 'knew' that we were going to get married while we were there, we really hadn't planned it that way."

    Their home is in Glenpool on five acres with two ponds and a great barn. Barbara loves all kind of animals. She is working on getting her license to be a Rescue Rehabilitationist. This is a special license issued by the state that you must have to take care of a wild animal in your home, like, shall we say, just for discussion purposes, a raccoon... "I'm not sure anyone even asks, 'Can I keep it?' when it comes to a stray or straggly animal. Once, in a year and a half, we found homes for 28 to 30 stray cats and puppies. We patched up a deer once and let him return to the wild.

    They favor Angus Cows (we have tube fed baby calves) and have raised Potter pigs (that's not really what they're called but we all know what they look like from Potter's Sausage). Currently they also have three horses.

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