David Pope's Obituary
David Pope was born in Wallington, Surrey England on October 19, 1927. He was the youngest child of Edith Annie Bell Pope and Harold Pope. His older siblings were Sheila Pope Grant, Michael Callis Pope, Cherry Pope Horsford and John Lindsey Pope.
David attended Dauntsey School, Wiltshire. In April 1945 he enlisted
in the British Army and seconded in the Indian Army Holding
detachment. Later he was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the
5th Royal Gurkha Rifles in Abbottabad at Kakol, now in Pakistan. He
returned to the U.K. with an Honourable Discharge as First Lieutenant
with the East Surrey Regiment. Those years were great for him and he kept up with the Regiment group until it disbanded in 2015.
David spent a year on a tea plantation in Nyasaland, now Malawi, and
then returned to England and entered the University of St. Andrews in
Scotland, graduating in 1957 with an MB/Ch.B.
David married Jean Ethel Choate on June 22, 1957 and sailed to America one week later. He started his internship at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, MD, followed by a residency in Psychiatry in Oklahoma City. Later he began his private practice in Northern Virginia and Maryland. David and Jean raised 5 children together; they have 13 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren (to date).
In July 1971 the family “sailed” back to England, spent 2 years in
Keynsham near Bath, and returned by boat to Virginia. David and
Jean “retired” to Annapolis in 1985, but David failed retirement and
continued to enjoy his work until 2010, at the age of 83. During this time one of his greatest joys was sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. In 2013 he and Jean moved to Plantation Village (PV), a retirement community in Wilmington, NC, where they settled in well.
After an unexpected illness in 2016, David continued to enjoy his life at PV despite his declining health, and died peacefully at the Lower Cape Fear Hospice Center in Wilmington on May 1, 2018.
What’s your fondest memory of David?
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