YOUR STORY MATTERS HERE: Tom & Pat Bishop

By Tim Wesley

Their house was paid off.  Their careers were winding down toward retirement. And their four adult children, all out of college and gainfully employed, were beginning to reward them with grandchildren.

So of course Tom and Pat Bishop decided to buy and run a bed and breakfast.

“We were pretty comfortable, no debt, could just sit back and relax and take vacations,” Tom said.  “But we figured there’s more to life than that.”

That was in 2014, and today the Bishops are the proud and successful innkeepers of Chapel Valley Estate, a charming, five-room, nine-acre property in Ellwood City.

But their road less traveled hasn’t been easy.

“It’s the hardest I’ve worked in the past 40 years,” Tom said.

Concurred Pat, who was a nurse for 37 years, including 10 in the emergency room:  “This can sometimes make a 13-hour shift in the E.R. look like a walk in the park.  I’ve been in hospital situations where you have patients in every room, you’re dealing with doctors and families, you have a phone on each ear.  There are days when that seems easy compared to this, and it wasn’t.  People think, how hard can it be to scramble some eggs, but I can tell you we work hard to make it look easy.”

They work hard with a perspective framed by Colossians 3:23-24, but more on that Biblical guiding light later.

Tom and Pat were born in Volant, about 30 minutes north of the bed and breakfast that doubles as home.  He grew up in town, and she grew up on a farm.  As kids, they attended the same church, so they’ve known each other for as long as they can remember.  During high school – Tom went to Wilmington and Pat attended Laurel – she asked him to her junior prom, but he was already going to his senior prom so he turned her down. 

Despite that initial rejection, they began dating after high school, in 1975, just as Tom was beginning a six-year stint as a nuclear submariner in the Navy and Pat was enrolling in the nursing program at Jameson Hospital in New Castle.  Over the next couple of years, with Tom in Connecticut and Pat in Pennsylvania, they forged a long-distance relationship built on weekend visits, long commutes, and letter-writing.

“When I was in port, if I had a free weekend I would drive home 10 hours and we’d hang out,” Tom said.  “She might be working a night shift so I would get a little sleep, we’d go to church at some point, and then I’d drive all night to get back in time for duty on Monday.”

Their love, dedication, and commitment morphed into a marriage in May 1978, and two weeks later Tom left for a three-month tour of duty on a Mediterranean cruise – spending most of the time underwater, of course.

“We just kept writing letters,” he said.

When the sub returned to port in Connecticut, Pat left her nursing job in Franklin and moved there.  The Bishops lived in Navy housing in Groton, Conn., for about a year until Tom and the sub – after a trip through the Panama Canal – were transferred to California.  Their first child, Kim, came along in 1980, prompting them to rethink the nomadic lifestyle of the Navy for a permanent home closer to their roots.

“We wanted our kids to know their grandparents, so we headed back to Pennsylvania,” Pat said.

They moved back in 1981 and for a few months lived with Pat’s parents, while she became a nurse at what is now UPMC Passavant Hospital in McCandless Township and he did odd jobs before taking a position as a Loss Control inspector with Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co. 

For his initial assignment, Tom spent three years doing quality assurance inspections at the Beaver Valley Power Station nuclear plant.  After that, he began traveling in a three-state territory, visiting manufacturing plants to inspect boilers, monitor compliance with codes, and check on safety issues.

“Safety was always the key, so I had direct access to company presidents and other executives,” he said.

Tom retired in May 2021, after a 40-year career with Hartford, during which he enjoyed the business relationships that he developed and the flexibility that his job provided.

“It was almost like being self-employed without the headaches,” he said.  “I traveled the same territory for most of my career, so I was able to manage my work schedule and still be able to get to most of our kids’ functions.”

Pat, meanwhile, spent 30 years in various nursing roles at UPMC Passavant before joining Cranberry Internal Medicine Associates where she finished her career in 2014.  She generally worked part-time while raising their kids and full-time once they reached college-age, frequently doing double-duty at multiple hospitals.

“I loved the patients, loved taking care of them,” she said.  “It felt like God helped me in my life to be compassionate and take care of them.  Building a rapport with patients to make them comfortable was rewarding to me.”

As their careers progressed, they were also rewarded with a growing family, with Kim (now 42) followed by Tim (39), Robyn (35), and Abby (31).  The family began attending Dutilh in 1986 thanks to Robyn, an infant at the time. 

“We were living in Marshall Township but attending church in Allison Park,” Tom said.  “Every Sunday we would jump in the car and drive about half an hour, and every Sunday morning Robyn would get car sick and throw up.  Finally, we said we need to find another church.”

They already had a connection to Dutilh, with Kim and Tim attending its preschool, but Tom said something else called the Bishops to attend here:  “I joked with people that both Pat and I grew up Presbyterian, but that church doesn’t have bishops, so we had to become Methodists.”

It didn’t take long for the Bishops to become involved at Dutilh, starting with Tom leading the men’s group.  That led to fellowship with other local men’s groups, Sunday school classes, and trips to Promise Keepers, a national men’s ministry.  He also taught youth Sunday school and worked with the youth group.  Pat, meanwhile, also volunteered with the youth group – including serving as a chaperone for the Creation music festival – and spearheaded various activities for women at the church.

“With the friendships and camaraderie we have here, our roots run deep,” Pat said.

Also running deep is the Biblical foundation on which their Christian beliefs sit, Colossians 3:23-24:  “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

That worldview – that they’re doing the Lord’s work – has defined how the Bishops approached not only their vocations, but their lives, too.

“To me,” Tom said, “Colossians 3:23-24 says it all.  We’re supposed to work with all of our heart for the Lord, not for human masters.  So who’s our boss?  It’s Jesus Christ, and I want to please the boss.  We own nothing.  Everything is borrowed from Him, so we need to be good stewards of what belongs to Him.  That’s been my direction, no matter what I’m doing.”

Pat shares that passion.

“I accepted Christ as my personal savior when I was in high school, and in church you learn that He should be number one,” she said.  “Once I did that, things were so much better.  We will always have highs and lows in our walks, but through it all He has to be number one; it can’t be any other way.”

Perhaps their values explain why the Bishops felt comfortable buying Chapel Valley Estate seven years ago, rather than cruising into retirement.  They had met the previous owners when Tim’s wife hosted her bridal shower there, so when the inn came up for sale they took a leap of faith and bought it.

“I left nursing to become an innkeeper, which is something I always wanted to do,” Pat said.  “Both are customer service-oriented, so I really look back and think that’s why I did what I did, to make this easier.  It’s cool to look back and see how God has been leading me.”

As innkeepers, the Bishops have enjoyed hosting guests from all over the world, including Argentina, Chile, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russia, and South Africa.  Tom likes to hear their visitors’ stories, and Pat loves to cook and try new recipes.   

“We really see it as a ministry,” Tom said.  “We have been able to be Christ-like in a bigger way, to use this in some ways for His purposes, such as hosting men’s and women’s retreats for Dutilh.”

Chapel Valley has an event room for bridal showers, weddings, retirement parties, etc., and it also serves as a cozy place for Bishop family gatherings.  Their 10 grandchildren have all visited, and they love exploring the property’s nooks and crannies, especially in search of the hidden candy that’s intended as a treat for paying guests.

“After the grandkids have been here, we always find a lot of extra candy wrappers,” Tom said.

At some point, the Bishops intend to hand off the Chapel Valley baton to new owners so they have more time to spend with those grandkids.  Until then, they will continue to pursue their business goals.

“When we bought it, the mortgage was sky high,” Pat said.  “Our goals were to pay it off in five years and to become listed on a select registry.  We accomplished both, so now we have one more:  To put up a building so we can do wedding receptions.  When we reach that goal, we’ll pass the baton to someone else and then really retire.  We don’t want to run a bed and breakfast in our eighties and nineties – although my mom is 93 and she does all the laundry for us.”

After all, there’s more to life than retirement.

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If you or someone you know in the Dutilh family has an interesting story or profession, send us your ideas! We would love to help tell the story. Email: communications@dutilhumc.org.