Betty Sue Dunning, 84, of Oak Ridge, passed peacefully on Oct. 18 after a long illness.

She was born Sept. 15, 1929, in Dardanelle, Ark., to the late John Cary (J.C.) and Rosa Lee Bowman, the seventh of nine children. The family was engaged in farming, and later moved to Wyatt, Mo., where she graduated from Diehlstadt High School in 1947.

She is a graduate of the St. Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing in Cairo, Ill., and spent a long career working as a registered nurse, most recently at Oak Ridge Hospital of the Methodist Church (now Methodist Medical Center) and Ridgeview Psychiatric Hospital in Oak Ridge.

On April 26, 1952, she married the love of her life, the late Donald E. Dunning, of Cairo, Ill. They enjoyed 58 years of marriage together, until his passing in 2010. The couple lived in Paducah, Ky., and in Cairo, Ill., before moving to Oak Ridge in 1960 with their three young children. [Read more…]