The Tabor family before Fannie married Floyd Bishop...

Hazel, Grandpa (Orin), Burton, Grandma (Della), Clara and Fannie 

The Adams Family

Clyde and Augusta had daughters Patricia

and Elizabeth and son James.

Photo: Clyde, Augusta and Patricia Adams about 1928

Long before Patricia married Vernon Bishop..

A Bishop family reunion... 

The Bishop family had lots of reunions. 

Bishop, Tabor, Grubaugh and Rydman, families at the Grubaugh farm in 1948...

Burton and Clara Tabor were brother and sister. Burton married Ester & Clara married 

Lauren Grubaugh. Patriarch Grandpa Tabor started it all in Bannister, Michigan.

Burton and Ester grew crops and farm animals. Lauren and Clara grew kids.

Both were successful farmers in their own way...

Viola June Bishop married Chuck Rydman and had daughter Penney and son's Kim 

and Scott..

Pat and Vern Bishop...

and Max in 1946

Roger Vern

Barbara Jean

Randall Allen

Rex Michael

Richard James &

Patrick Andrew

Moms are said to be the most influential role models.

This picture of Max's mom, Max & Roger was taken at a trailer 

park in Tulsa, Oklahoma where Max's dad went to the 

Spartan School of Aeronautics.

Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers were role models

for some of us... The good guys vs the bad guys 

(Roger and Max about 1950)...

Grandma Bishop and neighbor, Mrs. Baird walked a quarter mile to Main Street to shop

for groceries & such a couple of times each week...

The annual Tittabawassee River flood on Towsley Street in Midland, Michigan...

 Sometimes the flooding required boating to work and to town...

At $100 each, Max's dad bought 2 acres 10 miles north of Midland and moved our trailer there.

He then bought a surplus WW2 barracks building and disassembled & rebuilt it as an

attachment to the trailer. The Vernon Bishops lived in it while he spent years building  a new house on the

adjacent acre.

A one room school with 32 kids in 3 or 4 grades was often still the norm 

in rural Michigan communities.. .

This drawing of Robin Hood and Roy Rogers is one that Max did at the age of 6. For many, Robin and Roy probably instilled values that lasted a lifetime...

Prince John levied taxes on the poor at an unacceptable rate and those who benefited from those high taxes and held an allegiance to John could expect a visit from Robin Hood who would return some of that wealth to people who needed it more. Robin was considered a scoundrel and a thief by those more loyal to Prince John than to the Kingdom at large. To the poor, who had to accept the burden of John's high taxes and unbending collection methods, he was considered a hero.

We watched the Roy Rogers TV show every week. Though not a lawman or super hero, Roy did what he could to insure that good would triumph over evil.

 Aunts, Uncles & Cousins would sometimes come to visit.

Roger, Barb & Max are here with Cousins Skip, Rick and 

The boys sitting on it thought the horse was for fun.  To the boy on the right, the horse was work. 

It was a plow horse that had to be harnessed/unharnessed, curried, shod, fed and kept clean and 

Along with my dad, most of our neighborhood friends worked at Dow Chemical.

many also built their own homes because that's all they could afford to do..

This is a boy, not a girl. 

He is white, not brown. 

He is clean, not dirty.

He is short not tall. 

He is smart not dumb. 

He was treated well, not badly...

Christmas dinner was often at Grandma and Grandpa Bishop's House.

Having gone hungry at times through the depression and half starved

as a WW2 POW, Dad said that, though we may be without shoes when 

they wore out, we would always have enough to eat...

In 1959, Elvis was alive...

Buddy Holly, Richie Valens & the Big Bopper died that year.

All the girls cried...

When he was a boy, Max and his dad planted two Weeping Willow 

branches next to each other on the south acre of the property at 5400 N. Eastman Road. 

They were about the size of Max's thumb at the time. This photo was taken in 2006...

The Vernon Bishop family in 1960...

Mom and Dad were always there to support and participate in our social and recreational activities.

Mom mostly for school stuff & Dad for Boy Scouts, 4H, Little League, camping, boating, biking, 

hunting and fishing.

Max Bishop, Christmas 1964...

Christmas in the Bishop family was not so much a religious holiday as for gift giving and getting and for family gatherings. Christmas of '64 was real good for Max. With more freedom than he thought he had and no responsibilities. He wishes, at the time, he'd known how good...  ;-)

Utah State University...

Utah State introduced me to some religious, cultural and social values that I didn't quite understand or expect.

Max's  job at Harold Alexander's Bay Station in 1965 provided Gas Pump Jockey values...

Self Serve hadn't quite arrived as concept yet. Mr. Alexander's expectations were that

we would wash windows, check oil and air tires at any request, whether the customer 

bought gas or not.

Although drafted, Max was smart (or lucky) enough to avoid a tour in Vietnam by joining the Air Force.

It meant trading 2 years for 4 but his dad thought that he should make a career of it anyway so that was

his expectation when he joined.

The military provided some Government Issued Values and adjusted some others... 

(Where's Waldo?)

With "young single guy far from home values" that challenged previously learned

family, cultural and social values, we tried to make the best of the situation with cars,

girls (if we could attract them with our cars) and booze, often badly mixed in the 

wrong proportions...

The consequences of the decision to marry, and the resulting responsibilities, 

can make a big change in values. Max and Kerri were married on January 13th, 1968 in Cheyenne, Wyoming  ;-)

Kerri, Max's child bride.

In our first apartment...   

Max, Kerri and Scott at Yellowstone National Park in 1969 

with Dads and Moms Herman and Hattie Kranz, Pat and Vern Bishop...

 Max pulling cactus spines from his shoe in 1973 while on a Maricopa County site survey...

After working for Maricopa County, Arizona as a draftsman/mapmaker for almost 6 months and having been shorn and shaved for four years in the Air Force, Max decided to grow a beard and mustache. On a Friday afternoon, he was told that if he still had the beard on Monday, not to bother coming to work. Though he protested that he didn't think that was legal, he was told that since hadn't completed his probation period, he could be fired for any reason (like the department director didn't like beards.. With no apparent alternatives, he shaved.

Our first home (rented) in Phoenix at 3638 South 12th Street...  It had only three rooms, a bathroom, 

kitchen and living room/bedroom. At only $65 a month, while going to school on the GI bill, 

it was all we could afford at the time.

Our landlady's '56 Chevy had only about 50,000 miles when she sold it to us.

This photo is of Kerri and Scott with next door neighbor Irene Turner and son.

Patrick, Richard, Rex, Randy, Barbara, Roger and Max...

All the Bishop kids together one last time for Roger's wedding 

at Mom and Dad's place in Casa Grande, AZ 

Sadly, Patrick died in 2005 at age 44 and Rex in 2008 at age 52... 

At the Bishop Reunion in the summer of 2002 in Michigan...

In front: Beth, Randy, Vernon & Melissa in Rex's lap.