Funeral services for Julian “Jay” Bishop, of Brookhaven, are today, Feb. 28, 2017, at 11 a.m. at First Church of Nazarene. He will lie in state from 10 a.m. until time of service with burial at Stump Ridge Cemetery, Sallis. Riverwood Family Funeral Service in Brookhaven is in charge of arrangements.

Visitation was held Monday, Feb. 27, 2017, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the funeral home.

Mr. Bishop, 87, died Friday, Feb. 24, 2017, at King’s Daughters Medical Center in Brookhaven. He was born April 5, 1929, to simple country people on a cotton farm outside Sallis, in a three-room, three-window house. Dad, Madison Thomas was called Matt and Mom, Viola, was just Viola. She would whip the kids and laugh at them at the same time, they all say. No papers exist, but we all believe she was half Cherokee Indian. She died of cancer when Julian was 13. Daddy Matt raised the kids by himself. There were nine of them. Viola Ray was the oldest, then Julian, next came sister Frankie Eloise, followed by six brothers, Allen Caldwell, Huey Levi, Sidney Ephraim, Homer Basil, Marion Otis and Carl Wayne. They loved one another. He married the pretty girl up the road, Edna Lavelle Horne, in 1954. They were married for 62 years. They had one son named Allen Boyd who married Ruth Howard, and they had four boys, Michael, Matt, Ben and Thomas. For most of Jay’s working life, he ran a radio station and spun old-time country music discs. He loved music, garden tomatoes, a dog named Clyde, home-made ice cream, and the smoked turkeys he made for holidays that none of us have been able to replicate. And he just about lived for practical jokes. But, really, first and last, it was family, always family. If we Bishops have a distinctive trait, that would be it. We live for and with our family. He did not suffer long before dying of kidney failure. He has gone over the rainbow into the land of the great beyond from which no traveler has ever yet returned.  He was a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a patriot and a friend to most everyone. He was called Julian by family, Jay by folks in Brookhaven, Rooster to his siblings and Papa to his grandchildren. For them, it was Papa this and Papa that. And, please, Papa that other thing yonder.

Preceding him in death are his parents; sister Baby-Ray; brother, AC; brother, Homer; and grandson Thomas.

To express your thoughts to the family, visit riverwoodfamily.com and click on his name to leave a comment.