Dr. John M. Bender

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Dr. John Millard Bender was born on February 7, 1932 in Springs, Pennsylvania, the youngest child of Herman and Verna (Kemp) Bender. The Benders were farmers and attended the Springs Mennonite Church. John graduated from Goshen College in 1953, In the same year he married Naomi Kratz Hertzler, from Norristown PA, and started medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. Their daughters, Linda and Jan were born during the years at medical school and after residency the family went to volunteer with Mennonite Central Committee in Haiti (1959-61). John led the team that started the hospital at Grande Riviere du Nord. On their return from Haiti, John joined High Park Physicians in Goshen, IN with Willard Krabill. John practiced medicine in Goshen for 13 years as a trusted and beloved family doctor. Their son Jon was born in Goshen. The family attended College Mennonite Church and built a house in the orchard development on the Elkhart River.

With High Park Physicians, John was able to continue short-term volunteer service with MCC in Haiti for hurricane relief (1963) and hospital work (1971) and in QuangNgai Vietnam with a Quaker rehabilitation program (1970) during the war. He later went on to complete two years of residency in Physical Medicine in San Francisco (1967-8) and Salt Lake City (1973-4). After finishing his residency in Physical Medicine Rehabilitation John became the director of the Stewart Rehabilitation Center at McKay-Dee hospital in Ogden, Utah (1974-87). He worked as director of Western Rehabilitation Institute in Sandy, UT (1987-90) and continued in practice until retirement in 1997. John was committed to helping people with physical disabilities lead a normal life without stigma. In the later years of John’s practice he traveled the world to volunteer in various rehabilitation programs:  the Alert leprosy center in Ethiopia (1981), USSR (1983), Cyprus (1985), an around the world trip in 1986 to visit rehabilitation units with Mennonite or Presbyterian church hospitals in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, India, Nepal, and Thailand, and longer term volunteer work in Chiang Mai on a trip in 1987 to SE Asia.  John consulted regularly with rehabilitation units in Cambodia and Vietnam (1992-5) and in Nepal (1998) after retirement.

In spite of his busy work schedule John loved to spend time with his family on Sunday afternoon drives to explore the county, walks in the woods, vacations in Colorado or the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada. When the family moved west, they learned to ski and backpack, with trips throughout the intermountain west and the canyonlands, and built an A-frame cabin in the Uinta mountains. In 1981 they moved to a beautiful cabin in Ogden Canyon where they entertained grandchildren at the picnic table on the mountain and took them fishing and camping. In 1999 they moved to Dolores, Colorado to be near Jan’s family and built a strawbale home overlooking the reservoir and the San Juan mountains where they stayed until moving back to Goshen in 2010 to Waterford Crossing. They visited their children and grandchildren in Dublin (Ireland), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Musoma (Tanzania), Anchorage (Alaska) and San Jose (California). John cared for his beloved companion, Naomi, until her death in 2020 and he continued to live at Waterford Crossing until the last year of his life at the Laurels in Goshen.

John’s gift to his children was his love of nature and exploring new places with a concern for both the environment and its people. The homes he built or renovated in Goshen, Ogden Canyon and the Dolores Reservoir were in beautiful out of the way places where grandchildren loved to come to explore. He enjoyed fishing, rock-hounding, backpacking and walking the trials in the west. He later became fascinated with Native American life and art as well as the archeological ruins of ancient Puebloan peoples in the southwest. While in Colorado they volunteered as archeological site stewards, as a doctor on the Navajo Reservation and as a collector of native art. John was an artist himself and loved to draw and paint but in his later years had a woodworking shop and produced furniture, turned bowls, carved “wood spirits” and even swords and shields for his grandchildren. He took themes from nature and the west, delighting in finding special wood to turn. In each place he lived the family joined and served a local congregation and the wider church. He expressed his satisfaction for a full life of adventure and service filled with God’s goodness: “It was an incredible journey. We were blessed by our many experiences and by the many people along the way.”

He was predeceased by siblings Betta Lee Kauffman (2019) (Willis) and Weldon Bender (2019) (Emily and Jan), mother Verna Kemp Bender (1971), father Herman Weldon Bender (1988) and son-in-law Peter Shetler (2022). He leaves behind three children Linda Liechty (Joe), Jan Shetler, Jon Bender (Shirley Soulouman); seven grandchildren Anna Liechty Sawatzky (Joe), Jacob Liechty Curtis (Michelle), Aaron Liechty (Kelli Kol), Dan Shetler (Maytal Saltiel), Paul Shetler Fast (Rebecca Fast), Delilah Bender, Mathia Bender; eleven great grandchildren Isaac Sawatzky, Moses Sawatzky, Levi Sawatzky, Jesse Sawatzky, Fionn Liechty, Aislinn Liechty, Ari Shetler, Lena Shetler, Madeline Shetler Fast, Gideon Shetler Fast, Raphael Curtis; and two in-laws Galen Swope (Miriam Nauman) and Jan Bender (Weldon).

Visitation will be Saturday, August 31, 2024 from 2 p.m. until the 3 p.m. memorial service at College Mennonite Church. A light meal and fellowship at the church will follow the memorial service.

Memorial gifts in Dr. Bender's honor may be directed to Goshen College; https://www.goshen.edu/ or Center for Healing and Hope; https://chhclinics.org .

The memorial service will be livesteam, the link will be posted a week prior to it.