Remembering William Egglesfield — Physician, Father, and Community Pillar

Snapshot: Basic Information

Early life and formation

William Egglesfield’s life reads like a steady, patient script: early schooling in the Detroit area, a collegiate pause at Wayne State, then professional formation at the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. Those are the concrete waypoints on a map that otherwise stays quietly domestic. If youth is a seedbed, his education was the long winter of preparation that preceded the productive years; he emerged not as a flash of celebrity but as a steady presence wearing a white coat.

Dates and credentials matter in medicine. The record shows a D.O. degree and the path that accompanies it: university, medical school, licensure and practice. Numbers—graduation years, board dates—do not appear in abundance in public notices, but the institutions named speak to a professional arc rooted in Midwestern medical training and community service.

Family and relationships

Family was central. William married Kathleen on May 30, 1970. That legal knot produced a household that raised three children: Kerry, the eldest daughter; Colin, the middle child who became a public figure; and Sean, the youngest son. The family’s life threaded through the Detroit/Chicago region, later centering in Crete and Morris, Illinois, before ties to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, are recorded.

A simple table helps place the family in line:

Parenthood, in William’s case, appears consistently in the public record as the axis around which community and memory rotate. In recollections and memorials he appears as both practitioner and parent—roles that can mirror one another: listening, diagnosing, supporting.

Medical career and community role

William’s professional identity centered on osteopathic medicine. As “William Thomas Egglesfield, D.O.,” he practiced medicine for decades in the Illinois area. Obituaries and memorial pages emphasize longevity rather than trophies: a career measured in patient visits, long nights, and neighborhood trust.

Specific dates for residency placement or the exact length of practice at any single clinic are not widely published in public notices. What is clear from family and funeral listings is that his career anchored him in communities such as Crete and Morris, and that he later had ties to Sioux Falls. The public portrait is one of a community physician: available, regular, and part of the fabric of local healthcare rather than the rarified halls of national renown.

Timeline of key checkpoints

Numbers on the timeline are sparse where private life was private; nonetheless, the rhythm is clear: education, marriage in 1970, decades of professional practice, and a death recorded on October 6, 2015.

Public remembrance and media traces

Though there is no stand-alone biography for William in public archives, his presence often appears as the backdrop to other stories—most notably those involving his son, a public figure in entertainment. Family mentions, social-media tributes, and funeral-home memorials are the primary traces. They show a man remembered for his steady role within family and community rather than for public accolades.

Social posts from family members mark personal dates—birthdays, remembrances—where private grief crosses into public commemoration. Interviews with adult children occasionally mention him as part of family history or as a formative figure. These mentions function like small, bright markers on an otherwise muted map: they point to personal influence more than public fame.

Patterns in the records

Several patterns emerge from the public documentation:

• Local focus: Most written records are local—funeral homes, memorial pages, family obituaries—rather than national biographies.
• Professional consistency: Credentials (D.O.) and training institutions are repeatedly listed, underscoring a legitimate and continuous career in medicine.
• Family-centered legacy: Public references to William tend to center on his relationships—spouse and children—rather than on independent public projects or media ventures.
• Sparse financial detail: There is no reputable public information listing financial assets, net worth, or private business dealings.

These patterns sketch a profile that reads more like a ledger of human service than a press release: steadiness, expertise, and family ties.

Artifacts that remain

Obituaries, funeral notices, and family memorials form the archival residue of a life. They record names, dates, institutions, and relationships. They also carry tone: the small phrases that imply constancy, the listing of survivors, the quiet details that transform a name into a person people recognized in their daily lives.

Public mentions after October 6, 2015 continue to surface in the places where families leave traces—anniversary notes, birthday remembrances, and interviews where children recall the past. These are the kind of human traces that outlive the specific facts, like footprints in wet concrete: they remain legible, if not endlessly detailed.

Additional factual table: Dates & numbers at a glance

The figure that dominates this compact ledger is simple: a life measured by relationships, by service, and by the quiet mathematics of dates—birth, marriage, and the final, recorded day. The rest is the texture between them: clinics, morning rounds, family dinners, birthdays, and the small professional satisfactions that don’t always make their way into public record.