Roseanne (Ruppel) Ommen, an accomplished West Central Illinois nurse with a long career, passed away Tuesday. She was 86.
Ommen’s nursing career started as a graduate from the Passavant School of Nursing in August 1955 with her R.N. Shortly after graduating, she became a staff nurse at the hospital. Originally from near Hagener Station in rural Cass County, Ommen quickly recognized that Cass County did not have a local health department in the county. Cass County still had an operable Tuberculosis Clinic that had been set up in the 1880s, but not a functioning health department. Ommen volunteered hours speaking to organizations throughout the county to organize a health department. She helped to found the Cass County Health Department in 1977, which is still in operation to this day in the county seat of Virginia with a satellite campus in Beardstown.
Ommen would go on to earn her Master’s Degree in Nursing in 1989 from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Ommen eventually would become the Director of Nursing at the Morgan County Health Department before becoming a nurse at Jacksonville Correctional Facility.
Ommen is survived by two siblings and one daughter and a nephew. Private family burial services are being held.