Barbara A. Bissot Fund

Dr. Barbara A. Bissot was an ordinary person with extraordinary generosity. She had an incredible love for life and concern for others. Living a quiet and private life, Dr. Bissot was involved within the Mt. Pleasant community for more than 45 years. The Barbara A. Bissot Fund makes annual grants to charitable programs, services, and projects that address the ever-changing needs of Isabella County residents.

“We traveled all over the world together,” said Barbara’s friend, Martha Smith. “We toured Europe, Asia, Russia, the Orient, and the United States, visiting all parts of the country, site-seeing, and visiting museums and galleries. Barbara was a History and English major, so traveling to foreign countries and learning of their cultures was both interesting and important to her. We shopped for specialty dolls wherever we went. She usually bought an ethnically representative boy and girl doll for her collection. Barbara’s collection of 300 dolls, complete with full documentation, has been donated to Central Michigan University’s museum of cultural and natural history. She also had an extensive German Hummel collection from the 1950s. Barbara loved flowers and was an avid gardener.”

Dr. Bissot enjoyed volunteering in the gift shop at Central Michigan Community Hospital and playing bridge with the CMU Women’s afternoon bridge group. She was a member of Sacred Heart Parish, the Mt. Pleasant Historical Society, and served for 19 years as a docent in the Art Reach picture program. She lived a life of accomplishment, service, and faith.

Barbara Bissot was born in Grand Rapids, the daughter of Carl and Bertha (Jannausch) Bissot. She graduated from Aquinas College and received her master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Michigan. Her first teaching position was in the Grand Rapids Public Schools, where she later became a teaching consultant. For three years, as a civilian, she taught for the Department of Defense in a U.S. Army school in Germany.

She returned from Germany to the Grand Rapids Public Schools and in 1962, assumed a position teaching fourth grade at the Central Michigan University Laboratory School. She retired in 1992 from the Department of Elementary Education at CMU as an Emerita Professor of Education.

Dr. Bissot passed away in 2007 and her brother, Father Robert Bissot, founded the Barbara A. Bissot Fund in her memory shortly thereafter. We join in giving thanks for Barbara Bissot’s life, and we are honored to preserve her legacy for future generations.