William Thomas “Bill” Spock died of natural causes at 96 on Nov. 1, 2025 at Thornton Hall in Brunswick. He was born in Bay Shore, Long Island, and raised in Leonia, N.J., the son of Estelle and Leslie Spock, a renowned geology professor.
Bill graduated from Swarthmore College in 1951 with honors in math and physics and as a member of the Sigma Xi national honor society. He was a remarkable athlete. At only 5’6” he won 10 varsity letters as well as the Kwink Trophy for best athlete and the Ivy Medal as the outstanding man in his graduating class.
Bill was drafted into the Army in 1952 and served in the Korean War, where he was commended. On his return in 1953, he married Elizabeth Daugherty, his college fiancee. They had two children, Susan and Thomas, before Betty tragically died in a car accident in 1957. In 1959 he married Patricia Ellis, 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.
In 1953, Bill joined Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Philadelphia and over 30 years became an actuary and was eventually promoted to executive vice president and acting president. In 1989, after serving on its board, he became Swarthmore College’s vice president of finance and administration, overseeing construction and maintenance as well as financial operations. This job gave him his greatest professional satisfaction.
In his private life, Bill was devoted to his family. He was an actively engaged father who loved teaching his children to think, and he read books to the family after dinner for almost 18 years. He meticulously planned and led the family on extended vacations, quite unusual in the early 1970s.
Bill had a lifelong attachment to Maine. As a boy he spent summers in Ocean Park; he eventually built a cottage there for his own family to enjoy. In 1976 he and Pat purchased a home in South Bristol that was to become the family gathering place for the rest of his life. In 1995 Bill and Pat retired and moved from Pennsylvania to Brunswick, just an hour from South Bristol. There he served on the board of the United Way of Mid Coast Maine and as a volunteer in other community activities. In 2013 they moved to the Highlands retirement community, where he took up Ping-Pong doubles and played until age 94.
Retirement also gave Bill the opportunity to enjoy more tennis, which he played until he turned 90. A lifelong learner, he became an accomplished woodworker, read widely in history, kept up with the latest discoveries in science, and taught himself biology. He enjoyed his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Bill had an engaging smile, low-key sense of humor, unassuming nature, 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. 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 at engage.swarthmore.edu/portal/giving_form.
