In 1947, Donald Scott Wilkins graduated from the University of Iowa with a medical degree and a master’s in anesthesiology. Three years later, he served as a captain in an Army medical unit in Korea, where he contracted polio and died on a Navy hospital ship in the Pacific Ocean.

The Department library is named for Wilkins.

Earlier this year, Wilkins’ son, Scott Wilkins Beckett, donated a number of his father’s items to the Department. He noted that he and his family had attended the dedication ceremony for the Wilkins Memorial Library and thought the Department was the appropriate custodian for his father’s items.

The donated items include Captain Wilkins’ Army-issue airway kit, along with the U.S. flag that covered his casket and a bible given to him by his rector in 1942. Beckett also donated a combination cigarette lighter and case, a watch presented to Wilkins as a prize for being named 1940 Iowa Champion by the Ford Good Drivers League, and Wilkins’ master of science degree, signed by then-University of Iowa president Virgil Hancher.

The items will be appropriately displayed in the Department’s Wilkins Memorial Library, with gratitude to Scott Wilkins Beckett.