William Carroll McCormack ’49 died on June 1, 2004, in Mahtomedi, Minnesota.
Born on May 7, 1925, in Louisville, KY, he prepared for college at Norway High School in Maine and during World War II served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946, attaining the rank of corporal. After the war, he entered Bowdoin and became a member of Theta Delta Chi Fraternity. In June of 1948 he was graduated magna cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1952, he was graduated from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. After completing his pediatric residency at the University of Rochester in 1956, he moved to Ames, IA, where he was a pediatrician at McFarland Hospital until 1989, when he retired. He was a Fellow of the American Board of Pediatrics and in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University. In 1961, he invented the Bourns infant controlled respirator that enables premature babies with underdeveloped lungs to survive. He was a member of the Society of Sigma Xi, was an oral examiner for the American Board of Pediatrics, taught at the University of Iowa School of Medicine, and invented a body temperature responsive warming blanket for transporting infants that was patented nationally and internationally. He was a member of the Collegiate Presbyterian Church while he lived in Ames and became a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Stillwater, MN, in 2001. Surviving are his wife, Sylvia Love McCormack, whom he married in 1952; three daughters, Sara M. Hoffman of Red Wing, MN, Dr. Polly L. McCormack of Hopkins, MN, and Marilyn M. Johnson of Stillwater; a son, Donald L. McCormack of Boulder, CO; a sister, Mildred M. Moody of Cutler in Maine; and 12 grandchildren.