[nursebedlam]

Published Saturday
May 29, 2004

Nurse spent 40 years taking care of kids

BY BETSIE FREEMAN

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

For 40 years, Abbie Schulze took care of little ones as a registered nurse at Children's Hospital in Omaha.

For the last three years, nurses and others took care of her at the Nebraska Masonic Home in Plattsmouth, where she died Thursday after a long illness. She was 80.

Schulze was born in Lincoln and graduated from South High School in Omaha. She earned a bachelor of arts degree from Omaha University and also graduated from the Methodist School of Nursing.

At Children's Hospital, she taught student nurses and worked in the neonatal unit, said her sister, Mary Ann Kruser of Orangevale, Calif.

She was on hand when Children's opened its building at 44th Street and Dewey Avenue in 1948 and when it moved to its present location at 84th and Dodge Streets in 1981.

"You'll find it hard to believe, but when I was in nurses' training you didn't have a sink in every room," she told The World-Herald on the day of the move.

Schulze, who never married, enjoyed photography, especially taking pictures of people and developing them herself, Kruser said.

Since 1938, she had been a member of Wheeler Memorial Presbyterian Church, where funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Other survivors include a sister-in-law, Nova Schulze of Papillion, a cousin, nieces and nephews.


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