REST IN PEACE
Bill was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1926 and died in November of 2020. He was ordained in 1951, serving in the Diocese of Oklahoma City & Tulsa until 1975. In the 1960s he served for a few years as the national chaplain of the Christian Family Movement (CFM), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Later he was the founding pastor of what was then called a “Floating Parish” (John XXIII) in Oklahoma City. Now it would be described as an “Intentional Parish.” In 1965 he received his M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University in Marriage and Family Life. He became a Family therapist and associate of Virginia Satir, one of the early pioneers in family therapy. He was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Oklahoma in the Human Relations Department from 1977-2012. In 1986 he wrote “Family Reconstruction: Long Day's Journey Into Light”, W.W. Norton; and his second book, “You Can't Grow Up Till You Go Back Home; A Safe Journey To See Your Parents As Human” in 1993. In 2010 he wrote his third book, “A Couple Faces Death: My Life After Anne - Growing In Acceptance and Peace.”
In 1982, he married Anne Robertson, herself a clinical psychologist and family therapist. After 23 years his wife, Anne, died from melanoma. He kept a journal of his life from the discovery of the cancer, through Anne's death and of his grieving thereafter. This part of his inner life is found in his last book, “A Couple Faces Death: My Life After Anne: Growing in Acceptance and Peace.” It is filled with entries from his journal telling a story of love in the process of dying. It also contains a DVD of Anne speaking to a graduate class of university students. In the ten months of Anne's journey to her last breath, their love transcended anything they had ever experienced.