Roscoe is my Mom's "Grand Uncle" (and also third cousin twice removed!) and was the second son of Union Army veteran, William McCormick, and his wife, Elizabeth Van Doren, of LaSalle County, Illinois. He was the fifth of their seven children, born in late 1877. Roscoe married Margaret Kerby in Van Wyck, Idaho in 1904, and they had three children: Francis William, Doris Marie and Marjorie Margaret McCormick. (Note to Californian kin: His two daughters once lived in Sonoma County, and died there in 1994 and 1996)
Roscoe studied and received his first degree in Natural Science from the University of Illinois in 1901. I found him teaching science that year in Jackson County, Illinois. He then pursued his medical degree at the College of Physicians & Surgeons from 1903-1908. Dr. McCormick was employed as a medical inspector for the city of Chicago Health Department from 1908 to 1910. Can you say Upton Sinclair? Sinclair chilled his thousands of readers with an expose of Chicago's meatpacking industry in his book The Jungle. Have you read it? I've started it several times but can't finish it. Chicagoans too were horrified. Public outrage led to the 1906 Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts. So our Roscoe certainly came on board at the Health Department during a challenging time in Chicago's history. What stories he might have told!
The Pure Food and Drug Act also generated attempts to regulate Chicago's milk supply. In 1909, Chicago became the first city in the United States to pass an ordinance requiring compulsory milk pasteurization. This law did not guarantee the city's residents access to safe, pure, and cheap milk, however, in part because of discrepancies between Illinois statutes and Chicago ordinances. The city passed stricter regulations than the state and had a larger inspecting staff. But Chicago still faced great difficulty enforcing its rules, because it could not command uniform standards from 12,000 dairies in four different states that supplied residents with milk. Nor was it able to exercise regulatory control over an interest group with power at the state level.
After what was most likely not a soiree at the Health Department, Dr. McCormick went into private practice in Wauconda, Illinois. The 1930 Federal Census finds him working in Logan County, Colorado. He died in Colorado Springs in 1953, and is buried in Denver.
And before computers, there were card files at the American Medical Association:
Source: U.S. Deceased Physician File (AMA), 1864-1968 via familysearch.org
I got a kick out of reading the curriculum for the Murphysboro Township High School that Roscoe taught at in 1901:
Thanks for stopping by. A pumpkin pie goes to anyone who can come up with a photo of Roscoe. I'm eating a piece now from Village Inn--the best pie hole in town.