Ronald C. Bishop

Ronald Clare Bishop, MD, aged 87, Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, died in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on December 22, 2008, after several years of disability following a stroke.

  Dr. Bishop was born on February 28, 1921, in Almont, Michigan, the third of six children of Leon Thomas Bishop and Emma Borland Bishop.  He graduated from Michigan State College of Agriculture (1941) and University of Michigan Medical School (1944).  Commissioned in the Army Medical Corps, he served in Army hospitals in Marburg, Germany, after internship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.  Further peacetime medical training included internship at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn and internal medicine residencies at Massachusetts General Hospital and the West Roxbury Veterans Hospital in Boston.  He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School in 1951, where he pursued a career in research, teaching and patient care in the Department of Internal Medicine, Hematology Division, until his retirement in 1987.  He was Chief of Medicine at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Hospital from 1964 to 1977.  Elected to the University Faculty Senate, he held the position of President of the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs.  He was Director of the Unit for Human Values in Medicine (1981-1984) and a visiting scholar at the Hastings Center in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and taught for a semester at the Norman Bethune University of Medical Sciences in Changchun, China (1985).  He was a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a Fellow of the International Society of Hematology, and life member of American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  Dr. Bishop married medical school classmate Nancy V. Rider, on April 22, 1945.

  During his fifty years as a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, he sang in the choir, served as president of the board, chaired ministerial search and canvass committees and led the building campaign for the congregation’s new home.   Dr. Bishop served on the state and Washtenaw County boards of the Michigan American Civil Liberties Union, and received the latter’s highest honor, the Jerome Strong Civil Liberties Award, in 1997.  He was elected to the Ann Arbor Board of Education in 1969.  His love of music found expression throughout life, in solos with the Almont church choir, Glee Club at Michigan State, service on the board of the baroque orchestra Ars Musica, and always through listening, to great artists in concerts and recordings and to his grandchildren.

  Dr. Bishop moved with his wife to the Mennonite Home in Lancaster, PA in 2005.

  He was followed in death by his wife of 63 years, Nancy V. Bishop, on December 25, 2008.

  He is survived by his children Christine Bishop (Paul Arkema) of Weston, Massachusetts, David Bishop (Patricia Gorman-Bishop) of Florence, Massachusetts, Ellen Bishop of Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Andrew Bishop (Stephanie Bashirian) of Lancaster, Pennsylvania; grandchildren David, Joanna, and Elizabeth Arkema, Rider Bishop, Erica and Suzanne Young, and Erica, Emma, and David Bishop; sisters Mary Jean Lane and Jane Ellen Bishop of Ann Arbor, Michigan and brother John Sherman (Geraldine) Bishop of Almont, Michigan; sister-in-law Olwyn Bishop of Scottsdale, AZ; and 12 nieces and nephews.  Two brothers, Truman of Midland, Michigan and Paul of Scottsdale, Arizona, and son-in-law Mark Young predeceased him.

  A Memorial Service will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor on April 4, 2009.  Memorial contributions may be made to The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (http://www.uusc.org/) or the Mennonite Home of Lancaster, Pennsylvania (http://www.mennonitehome.org/). Charles F. Snyder Funeral Home, Inc. 717-393-9661 is in charge of arrangements. To send the family online condolences please visit www.snyderfuneralhome.com