William Thomas "Bill" Spock

William Thomas Spock

August 18, 1929 – November 1, 2025

William Thomas Spock (Bill) died of natural causes at 96 on November 1, 2025 at Thornton Hall in Brunswick Maine. Born in Bay Shore, Long Island, Bill was raised in Leonia, New Jersey, the son of Estelle and Leslie Spock, a renowned geology professor.

After becoming valedictorian of the local high school, Bill graduated from Swarthmore College in 1951 with honors in math and physics and as a member of the Sigma Xi national honor society. His passion, however, was for sports. He was a remarkable athlete. At only 5' 6", he was captain of the baseball team, point guard on the basketball team, and striker on the soccer team, winning 10 varsity letters and the Kwink Trophy as the best athlete in his class. He also received the Ivy Medal as the outstanding man in his graduating class.

In 1952, Bill was drafted into the army and served in the Korean War in the 3rd Infantry Division doing photo interpretation behind the lines. He was commended and promoted to Sergeant First Class. On his return in 1953, he married Elizabeth Daugherty (Betty), his college fiancée, who worked for Holiday magazine. They had two children, Susan and Thomas, before Betty tragically died in a car accident in 1957. Bill and the children lived with his in-laws, and then in 1959 he married Patricia Ellis (Pat), a software instructor for IBM. Pat was also a potter and later became a paralegal. They had two more children, Jennifer and Jeffrey. The family lived in the Philadelphia suburbs near Swarthmore, where they attended the Friends Meeting.

After the war, in 1953, Bill joined Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company in Philadelphia as an actuarial trainee, and eventually became a Fellow in the Society of Actuaries. Bill became responsible for the company's expanding data processing systems, overseeing the installation of advanced IBM computers linking offices throughout the country-a remarkable achievement at the time. He also led the company's strategic planning efforts, a relatively new endeavor in the business world.

In his later years, Bill said that his only real achievement was starting a soccer program in Nether Providence in 1965. He said did it for "little guys like me," as he had not had the opportunity to play soccer until he enrolled in college. At the start, he hand-built the goal posts and helped recruit players. For a serious introvert, this was a monumental task, but the program he passed on expanded over the years and continues to thrive today.

After thirty years at Penn Mutual, having been promoted to Executive Vice President and Acting President, Bill took early retirement-which did not last long. He worked for two friends in succession, Jack Reohr and Jim Noyes. At the Noyes insurance agency, Bill ran the personal lines operations; as Jim said of Bill, "I've got a Rolls-Royce engine on a Cessna."

Bill was also a member of the boards of Riddle Hospital and Swarthmore College. In 1989, he was asked to become Swarthmore's Vice President of Finance and Administration, overseeing construction and maintenance as well as financial operations. These were major new responsibilities, and the job gave him his greatest professional satisfaction.

In his private life, Bill was devoted to his family. His children remember him as an actively engaged father who made time to play games and do puzzles with them, coaching them in sports and inventing new ones. He loved teaching his children to think, and read books to the family after dinner for almost 18 years, instilling in them a desire to read and discover. Bill liked to travel and felt it was important to educate his children by introducing them to a wider world. He meticulously planned and led the family on extended vacations, quite unusual in the early 1970s. These included a six-week camping trip around the United States, another six-week trip through Europe, and a final trip together in the Black Sea in 2009.

The family spent summer vacations in Ocean Park, Maine, where Bill and Pat built a small cottage and played with the children on the beach. They later bought a house in South Bristol, Maine, where he designed a large addition so that his children and their families could get together in the summers.

In 1995, Bill and Pat retired and moved to Brunswick, Maine, where they built another home closer to South Bristol. He served on the board of the Midcoast United Way and as a volunteer at the Damariscotta Friends Meeting, among other community activities. He also took up woodworking, making elaborate cutting boards and tables, for which Pat furnished ceramic tile tops. Retirement also gave Bill the opportunity to enjoy more tennis-a lifelong source of pleasure-which he played until he turned 90 and served on the tennis committee of a local club. He also enjoyed ping-pong, playing doubles until he was 94.

A lifelong learner, Bill used his retirement to indulge in other interests as well. He loved classical music and attended the Portland Symphony, where Pat had joined the board. He read widely in history, kept up with the latest discoveries in science, and taught himself biology. He played with his grandchildren as he had with his children. They fondly remember time spent on the tennis court, reading, playing games, and-when they were older-receiving occasional surprise snippets from the latest scientific articles in the mail.

Bill was loved by everyone who knew him for his engaging smile, low-key sense of humor, and mild temperament. He was unpretentious and modest, happier to listen to others' stories than to tell his own. His concern for integrity, fairness, and teamwork and a strong desire to understand other points of view set an example. None of his children ever heard him utter an expletive! He lived long and prospered. He truly will be missed.

He leaves behind his wife of 66 years, four children and their spouses, five grandchildren with two spouses, four great-grandchildren, and his sister Elizabeth Newgeon and her family. A family memorial is expected next summer. In lieu of flowers, gifts in Bill's memory can be made to the William T. '51 and Patricia E. Spock Scholarship Fund at Swarthmore College. https://engage.swarthmore.edu/portal/giving_form