Lewis Frederick Bissell, MD
June 8, 1921 ~ December 23, 2007
Resided in:
Swannanoa, NC
Dr. Lewis Frederick Bissell, 86, of Swannanoa, passed away on December 23, 2007, at John F. Keever Hospice Solace Center following a long battle with cancer.
Lewis was born in Richland, MI on June 8, 1921, to the late Ernest and Bernice Bissell. Following his graduation from Vicksburg High School, he served in the U.S. Navy, then graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in internal medicine.
After completing his internship in Bremerton, WA, Lewis married his first wife, Melba L. Haggerty and began his residency in Ann Arbor, MI. During a second term in the Navy he was stationed in Jax, FL. He then returned to MI to complete his residency at Bronson Hospital in Ann Arbor.
In 1956, he moved his family to Aurora, OH where he opened a family medical practice. In 1975 he divorced, remarried and moved his practice to Ravenna, OH. A few years later he divorced, moved and opened a practice in Asheville where he was active in integrative health care for more than 25 years.
During the past several years he was a regular attendee at the Swannanoa Valley Friends Meeting.
Lewis is survived by his six children and 18 grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 10:00 am on Saturday, January 19, 2008, at Jubilee Community Church, 46 Wall Street, Asheville, NC.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to John F. Keever Hospice Solace Center, P.O. Box 25338, Asheville, NC, 28813.
View current weather.
Memories Timeline
Guestbook
Sign the Guestbook, Light a Candle
I am grateful and fortunate to have been one of his patients, he is the only one who was able to help me after 15 years of searching. Thank you Dr. Bissell.
Your father was a Renaissance man and one whom we feel honored to have known and from whom we learned much. He faced his illness with insights, intuition, inventiveness, and courage. We wish you peace in the days ahead and are deeply sorry for your loss.
Dr, Bissel gave me the knowledge I needed to go from a fading away cardiac and autoimmune patient to a healthy, active individual. With his help and guidance, I changed my life about one hundred and eighty degrees. I will always be grateful to him and feel blessed to have known him. I am a clinical psychologist and have worked in many health care settings. He was one of the few healers I ever met.
Prior to my working with Dr. Bissell, my mother, who was a worrier by nature, was of course extremely worried about my health. I am sure it brought her huge relief in her last days to know how much I had improved. The other members of my family also echo her sentiments.
My greatest sympathies and best wishes to his children and grandchildren.
Sincerely,
David Liberman
Yes! A Renaisance Man is what your father and grandfather surely was! I am proud to say that I was once a friend and colleague of Fred. We participated in advanced psychotherapy training at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland in early ’70s and regularly met on Monday evenings across the street for a beer or two at Lum’s Restaurant. Occasionally Melba would join us and I also enjoyed her company. When he moved his practice to the AAA building near Ravenna I also became acquainted with his new wife as I often referred patients to him from my psychology practice and professorship at Kent State University. I have very special memories of his skillful bedside manner demonstrated with a particularly challenging multiple personality patient of mine who had attempted suicide and even tried jumping from my car as I was transporting her to his office for a necessary medical procedure. Thanks to Fred’s ability to intervene on many levels, this woman is still a patient of mine and occasionally reflects of Dr. Bissell’s interventions that supported my therapy with her. I wish I had known Fred had moved to Ashville, as I was there in October for the SE-USA regional meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Gestalt Therapy and would have visited him had I known. I could ramble on for pages here with fond memories, but will end by extending my condolences to you all. Your father and grandfather was a remarkable physician and human being and will be missed by many. Please accept my sympathy and love, Dr. Ansel L. Woldt, Emeritus Professor, Kent State University
Dr. Bissell diagnosed a long standing gluten intolerance for me. I had been to many doctors previously and was living a miserable life. I prayed that God would help me find out what was wrong. He sent me to Dr. Bissell.
I really love Lewis and so appreciated his continuous inquiry and passionate expression of the infinite depths of love. He never hesitated to tell the truth of every level of his experience which lead to many occasions of recognizing Absolute Truth of Oneness. He was one of the first to attend my initial Bliss Gatherings 8 years ago at Jubilee which included a very profound shared experience after 911. I began offering them again a couple years ago, and he was a regular attendee last year adding much to the offering. He will be greatly missed by me and many in the world … yet the Silence of the Heart that was conveyed through his being remains ever Present.