Throughout his long medical career in Chicago, Dr. William O. Ackley defined what a family physician should be, according to his family, colleagues and former patients.
He was attentive, calm, empathetic, the kind of doctor who still made house calls, day or night, they said.
The kind of doctor whose patients mourned his retirement, even before they mourned his death at 87 of heart failure on Wednesday, Dec. 31, in Paxton, Ill.
“The most important part of his practice was his patients,” said his wife, Jeannette “Mitch,” who also was his nurse. “He was a very good, conscientious and compassionate doctor.”
Among those on his long list of patients were Marylyn Ahlfeld, her late husband, Tom, and their five children.
“He was just great,” Marylyn Ahlfeld said. “He would drop everything to take care of people. A gentle, fun-loving guy who always had a good joke to tell you. He had a sixth sense about healing and diagnosing. He did so many things for my family.
“He was so caring and generous, one of the last family doctors who really knew his patients and took the time to talk to them and never rushed.”
Dr. Ackley was raised in Harlan, Ky., and came to Chicago to attend Chicago Medical School.
In 1944, while interning at Swedish Covenant Hospital, he met his wife, an X-ray nurse. The couple married in 1949. Dr. Ackley completed his residency under Dr. William Stromberg at Swedish Covenant, his wife said. He then opened a family practice on North Lincoln Avenue before he was called into military service by the Army during the Korean War, serving as a captain in its medical corps.
After he was discharged, he set up a practice on the first floor of the three-flat home he and his wife owned on Foster Avenue. In the late 1970s, he moved the practice to an office on Lincoln Avenue, then to West Peterson Avenue from where he retired in 1991. He was affiliated with Swedish Covenant throughout his career.
Dr. Roger Thorpe, a missionary doctor from 1966 to 1996 in Africa, first met Dr. Ackley at Swedish Covenant while on furlough.
“He was very personable, very concerned about his patients and would spend long hours in the hospital with them,” Thorpe said. “The welfare of his patients was always his top priority. He made time and took a personal interest in them and their families.”
Dr. Ackley, also a general surgeon, traveled several times to Africa in the 1980s to work with Thorpe.
After coming home from the war, Dr. Ackley was determined to learn how to fly a plane, his wife said. After earning his license, he often flew with a co-pilot to medical conventions. He was a founding member of the Illinois chapter of Silver Wings, a fraternity whose members are required to have logged a solo flight in a powered aircraft at least 25 years ago.
He was involved in many professional organizations and was past president of the American Society of Abdominal Surgeons.
Other survivors include his daughter, Susan; two sons, Richard and Robert; and seven grandchildren. Services have been held.
