John E. Bock ’73

John died July 11, 2025, at his home in Willis, Texas, while surrounded by his family.

He was born in Huntsville, Texas, and attended high school in Illinois. He entered Princeton as a pre-med student with the Class of 1968 but left school and joined the Army as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. After the war, he returned to finish his degree. He toured with Triangle and was a member of Ivy Club. He majored in psychology and graduated in 1973. He earned a medical degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.

John practiced medicine in Texas, where he found he had a gift for explaining complex ideas in simple, accessible terms and took pleasure in sharing what he knew.

At home, he built things from the ground up. Creating from raw materials gave him deep satisfaction. He built wagons and chicken coops, and managed sheep, cows, pigs, and children with equal parts logic and care. In retirement he built a raw-milk dairy and devoted himself to cultivating legumes and native grasses. Farming was not a hobby, but devotion.

He was married to Camille for 47 years in a partnership marked by friendship and shared purpose. Together they raised four children — Courtney, Gretchen, David, and Rachel — who carry forward his legacy of hard work, curiosity, and the occasional impulse to take up beekeeping. He lived deliberately and thought deeply. He mended fences in every sense of the word. And in the end, he left behind not just children and grandchildren, but a legacy grown green and lasting under a Texas sun.