Music • Photography • Writing
The
Bishops
Chicago
Years
Wolf
Place
Skyway
Park
Julie
West
Oak
Marge's job as a switchboard operator at SDC expanded when she transferred to human resources, with a significant pay raise. With Bob's income from working at the bank and playing gigs, the Bishops were moving up the income scale. They decided to sell the house in Skyway Park, the only house Bob ever had built for himself and his family, and buy a nice if a bit quirky home at the top of the Alsace hill in the Broadmoor area, 17 West Oak. (The house is at the edge of one of the ritziest neighborhoods in the country. Bob referred to it as "Shanty Broadmoor.") The house sat astride the incline for an old trolley line that once connected the Broadmoor, Stratton Park in Cheyenne Canyon, and downtown Colorado Springs. At this time there was nothing but an empty field below the house. Today luxury homes fill all that space.
In this photo, Laura is in her senior year at Cheyenne Mountain High School, which is barely visible just over Marge's head. Betty, home from college in Greeley, holds Julie, now a toddler. Note how similar their hairstyles are. Note also how affectionately Marge carresses Rob in this shot. Rob's older siblings were all growing up and Julie was getting big enough not to need as much constant care but Rob always struggled, mostly with himself and his health issues like allergies.
This custom-built home has an great view of the Front Range and Lower Cheyenne Canyon below. To the left is a single bedroom as the entire second floor, where outside the windows the magpies would settle their family squabbles in the scrub oaks around sunrise. At the center is the kitchen and dining room. To the right is the living room, with a grand view that in the winter, with the outside floodlight on, looked for all the world like the prow of a ship. It fell to Tom to shovel the large driveway, which meant that the deep snow we got all ended up on top of the small, scraggly blue spruce at left. It seemed like enough to kill it but the tree loved the snow. It's now a very large, magnificent tree.
This interior image of the kitchen was taken after Marge and Bob remodeled it. The colors of the day were avocado and rust.
The dining room was adjacent to the kitchen and held the large expandable dining room table Bob and Marge bought from their friends the Satts before they moved away. The painting of the nasturtiums, a gift painted by their friend Catherine Curtis, serves as the logo for these pages. Tom still owns the cedar chest below the nasturiums.
The dining room was where most celebrations took place. Here we're gathered with Marge's aunt Bernice (in red) for Laura's wedding to Lance Smith. Note the platinum-edged china and fancy tableware. The Bishops had moved up in the world.
After dinner, the Bishops toasted the newlyweds, Laura and Lance. They met while both attended Cornell College in Iowa, where Lance competed as a wrestler. Back row: Louie, Betty, Bob, Rob, Marge. Front row: Julie, Laura, Lance. All of Lance's family, none of whom were taller than Laura's five-two, shared the kind of eyes that a flash bulb turns into red demon eyes.
After the death of her father Russell in 1963, Marge made an extra effort to include Olive (left), her mother, who still lived in California. Olive remarried briefly and disastrously. She came to visit Colorado Springs and see the family and Bob took this slide. Betty and Julie were far enough apart in age that Betty, who had left music and taken a teaching certificate, was Julie's first grade teacher at Broadmoor Elementary. Note again Marge's closeness to Rob.
Bob hired Paul Guerran, a friend of Betty's who was a photographer, to take this formal family portrait in 1967. Note that Tom's hair has begun to grow long while Bob's has been cut to almost a flat top. Bob was a lifelong Republican and was aghast at all the unrest and protest around the nation. Tom seemed to symbolize all of that to him and they went through a period of alienation. The photographer managed to get Rob to look at the camera and smile, a rarity.
Bob's gigs weren't always formal. This shot was probably taken in Cripple Creek, Colorado. His attire is what he wore when he played at the Golden Bee. Marge seems to be gazing at him affectionately but she's actually just staring into space. She wasn't thrilled with his music job (or the contents of the bottle on the piano) and she managed to persuade him to retire from playing for about three long, hard months.
In 1969, Bob and Marge took Julie and Rob to Mexico for spring break. (The older kids were up and gone by this time.) Here Julie and Marge sift the sand for seashells, Julie wearing a fringed straw hat and Marge some fashionable sunglasses.
Robert Bishop Sr. and Robert Bishop Jr. rented a power boat and took it out for a spin while in Mexico. Rob had joined the wrestling team and had gotten himself into great shape.
The Barnes clan planned a family reunion in the summer of 1969, which they held up on Grand Mesa near Betty's house in Grand Junction. They rented a cabin and brought old picture albums. But just days before the reunion, Olive, mother of five of the people in this picture, passed away in her sleep with no warning. The Barneses decided to hold the reunion anyway as a sort of memorial. In the photo: Bob Barnes, Marge, Mary Barnes, second wife of Bruce Barnes next to her, Bruce's daughter Nancy, Dan (Russ, Jr.) and his wife Sylvia, and Dot with her daughter Linnea.
After the reunion some of the family convened on the world famous hot springs pool in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. The pool was managed as a natural pool back then and the sides of the pool were green and slippery with algae. Undeterred, Marge demonstrated her signature handstand on the diving board (followed by a neat dive into the water) and a brisk journey down what passed for a water slide back in those days.
Bob's dad Louie may have taken this picture while the family was still at Glenwood Springs. Rob by now has grown taller than his parents and looks confident and mature. Unfortunately, just a few weeks later he was at the rock climbing exhibition area in North Cheyenne Canyon showing off for some girls and, since he knew nothing about rock climbing, he slipped and fell and died instantly. Events of that sort can shake a family to its core. Marge, for whom Rob had always been the baby of the family, was devastated and for the rest of her life couldn't speak of Rob without crying. When Marge got a better job offer in California in 1975, Bob and Marge decided to divorce and go their separate ways, Marge taking Julie with her to finish school. Since the older kids were in college or married, it effectively ended the nuclear family as we had known it.
But the Bishop family went on. In 1980 the family decided to put together another reunion in Grand Junction. Much had changed. Betty had married a fellow named Richard Bishop (no relation) and they had five children, Laura and Lance had divorced but they had a daughter named Persephone, Tom was involved with the girl singer in his rock and roll band and they were busy taking care of Becky's son Nathan, and Julie had grown up and was out on her own. It was a joyous occasion but it marked another final: Marge, who was still close friends with Bob, passed away suddenly just three years later and Louie and Louise would follow not too long after.
Back row: Julie, Louie, Louise, Tom holding Nathan, and Becky Higgins. Middle row: Persephone, Laura, Bob, Marge, Rich, Dielle, and Danny. Bottom row: Mike, Neil, and Joel.