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Mother, daughter share special bond
FORT SCOTT, Kan.-- Sharing a career field and the desire to do good works has forged a unique bond between Nancy Shadden and her daughter, Emily.
Nancy, clinic manager at Mercy Clinic Family Medicine-Linn County, inspired her 20-year-old daughter to become admissions representative at Mercy's Convenient Care Clinic in Fort Scott.
Noting that her mother's work environment is a lot friendlier than the one she had as a bill collector, Emily mused, "Ever since I was little, I always went back and forth in my mind about being a dentist or a nurse.
"Seeing her and all other nurses at the Pleasanton clinic made up my mind for me."
Her mother agrees that Emily has found her niche. "She's always been ... a giving person and a caring person. I think it was just a natural fit for her to get into this type of field," said Nancy, who's had a long career as an emergency medical technician and a Red Cross disaster coordinator and police and sheriff's dispatcher.
Looking into online courses and accumulating some college hours through online classes that Mercy provides, Emily adds that her and her mother's shared interest has brought them closer. "It gives us something that only she and I can speak about," she said.
"We have pretty much our own inside stories that only she and I can relate to and only she and I can connect and bond to."
Nancy started as an EMT when Emily was a baby. She's worked as disaster services director for the Red Cross in Yukon, Okla., just outside Oklahoma City, and as a dispatcher for the Linn County Sheriff's Office and Fort Scott Police Department. She has been with the Pleasanton clinic for five years.
Emily's father, Allen, has been in law enforcement and her boyfriend, Clint Johnson, is the police chief in Mound City, Kan.
What Emily admires most about her mother is her work ethic. "Ever since I was little, she's never done anything that (she) hasn't put her full heart into. She went to college when my sister (Kylie Thompson of Mound City) and I were little. She (Nancy) was a teacher, cooking and cleaning for us, doing everything to her fullest," Emily said.
For Mother's Day, Nancy said the family is going to a graduation ceremony in Osawatomie. Emily and her boyfriend are planning to give Nancy some chocolate-covered strawberries and maybe flowers. Her boyfriend has a son and they are going to buy Nancy a T-shirt with the boy's handprint on it, saying, "World's Greatest Grandma."
"It's been tradition in our family every year to get her some kind of plant," Emily said. "We thought we'd step it up a little bit this year."