Joseph R. and Elizabeth B. Hoover Scholarship Fund

Joseph R. and Elizabeth B. Hoover were born during the early 1930’s.  Joseph was the seventh of eight children.  His family lived on an 80 acre sharecropper farm in Elkhart County, Indiana.  Working hard was a given.  Joseph learned to do most anything relating to a farm.  He continued to help as long as he lived at home which included the four years he attended Goshen College.

Following Joseph’s junior year at Goshen College, through a mutual friend, he met Elizabeth Souder of Souderton, Penn., who was completing her freshman year at Grandview Hospital School of Nursing in nearby Sellersville.  This relationship culminated in marriage in December of 1956.  They were married for 47 years.  Together they raised two daughters, Lisa and Tina, one son, Albert and welcomed ten grandchildren.

Even though Joseph’s parents were members of the Wisler Mennonite Church, he and two of his sisters were baptized into the Old Mennonite Church (Yellow Creek – now a Mennonite Church USA congregation).  He did very well academically and desired a college education.  His parents gave him permission to go to Goshen College but they were unable to help him financially.  Therefore he earned what he could and borrowed the rest.  A sister, who was two years older, interrupted her study at Goshen College while she took a job for two years in order to assist them financially.  They graduated together in 1955.

Joseph held a deep appreciation for his Goshen College experience.  Shortly before he met Elizabeth he wrote: “most of my work in school other than requirements has been in mathematics and the natural sciences.  My interests however, contain much more than these areas.  More recently psychology (especially personality study), philosophy, and theology have intrigued me.  I believe God has given us our minds as well as all other gifts and that we have a responsibility to use them.  Nevertheless, knowledge without wisdom is quite meaningless.”

The summer months of 1954 and 1955 were spent in the geology laboratory of Columbia University, New York, working with the mass spectrometer.  Both summers exceeded his expectations!  In addition to interesting work at the laboratory, he and Elizabeth were only about 100 miles apart so they saw each other frequently and in August of 1955, they announced their engagement to be married.

That fall Joseph had not yet determined his career direction and began his two-year IW service (alternative to the military) at Prairie View Psychiatric Hospital, Newton Kans. as an aide.  His experiences there led him to consider psychiatry as a field of interest.  He earned the few credits yet needed for medical school entrance at Bethel College, North Newton, Kans.  Then, in September 1958 the family of three (Lisa was now nine months old) moved into a fourth floor apartment (with no elevator) in Chicago’s near southwest side.  Thus began Joseph’s four years of medical school at Northwestern University.

These were challenging years, to say the least.  Elizabeth worked part-time as a nurse during the first year.  Thereafter she remained at home with the two children (Albert arrived in 1960).  Financially they were blessed greatly by the generosity and kindness of a doctor in Elkhart County who loaned them whatever they needed during those years.  Of course, they lived as frugally as they knew how.

After graduation from Northwestern in 1962, they moved to Fort Wayne, Ind. were Joseph fulfilled his one-year internship at Lutheran Hospital.  He also discerned that psychiatry was not the direction he would go.  He was invited by a small group of family practice doctors to join them at Physicians Plaza, Fort Wayne and he accepted their invitation.

It takes time to build a practice.  For awhile he worked certain night or weekend shifts at hospital emergency rooms in addition to regular office hours.  He was a doctor who spent time with his patients and made many house calls.  He had many occasions to use his psychiatric experiences in patient care.  He undertook the medical care of numerous refugees from Chile and Laos.

Dr. Hoover was faithful to the church – being there for worship services, small group meetings, service projects.  He gave unselfishly of his talents and treasures.  During these years, Elizabeth substituted as nurse in the office occasionally but mainly cared for the children (Tina arrived in 1967) and managed the home.  However, in 1982 after Joseph received the diagnosis of Parkinson Disease, she had the opportunity to work half-time as office nurse.  She continued in that role until they both retired July 1, 1990.   Dr. Hoover served the Fort Wayne community for 27 years!

Dr. Hoover was held in the highest regard – always willing and ready to serve his patients as a true physician.  Their needs always came first.  On many occasions he found it necessary to attend to patients’ needs at the expense of enjoyment with his own family.  His ability as a physician and his quest for continuing knowledge never faltered.  Ultimately his illness caused an untimely shortening of his career at its zenith.