Countless mothers could attest to obstetrician/gynecologist William Reeves's winning bedside manner. "He never hesitated to spend a little extra time with his patients," his son Michael says. But the doctor's most consequential service to pregnant patients may have been getting them to a hospital in time.
In the 1950s, Reeves grew concerned about facilities to serve the population booming around Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Los Altos. "When these women were ready to deliver," longtime friend and hospital colleague Norma Melchor says, Reeves and his patients "would have to go to Stanford Hospital or to a hospital in San Jose, and sometimes the women couldn't wait for him to arrive." With colleagues, he proposed a hospital district and levy that was approved by area voters in 1956. El Camino Hospital admitted its first patient in 1961.
William Abbott Reeves, '45, MD '52, physician and rancher, died September 12 of complications from prostate cancer. He was 86.
A fourth-generation Californian, Reeves was born in Salinas, where his father, Rollin, was a general practitioner. He spent boyhood summers on the family's 11,400-acre property, Rancho Cienega del Gabilan, near San Juan Bautista, and his love of horsemanship and the ranch marked his entire life.
After graduation from Stanford, Reeves attended the Naval Academy Midshipman School at UCLA, where he met his wife-to-be, Ann McDuffie. Serving in the Pacific, he helped run landing craft that transported soldiers and tanks to Iwo Jima. At the war's end, he started medical school.
Reeves was El Camino Hospital's first chief of staff, and he served on its board and the board of the hospital foundation. He also helped found its RotaCare Free Health Clinic and the Older Adult Resource Center.
Outside of his family and his profession, the ranch remained his passion. Bert Johnson, '48, MD '52, a Los Gatos ob/gyn, shared his classmate's love of riding and the "wanna-be cowboy" life. Sponsored by his friend, Reeves was accepted to the Rancheros Visitadores, a group of about 400 "gentleman horsemen" who gather every year in the Santa Ynez Valley for ranch-oriented competition and camaraderie.
Reeves was predeceased by his first wife. Survivors include his fiancée, Pat Pierce; sons Bill and Michael; daughter Lauren Reeves Boyle; seven grandchildren; and his sister Marilyn Baldocchi.
