Adeline Lavonne McCormick-Ohnemus

Dr. Adeline Lavonne McCormick-Ohnemus, an advocate for healthy lifestyle choices and preventative medicine, was a role model and motivator for the rural women she cared for over the 45 years she lived and practiced medicine in Milo, Iowa.

McCormick-Ohnemus was born on November 21, 1921, in Lucas County, Iowa. She put herself through junior college and became a teacher. She then decided to go to Drake University in pre-med and was the only woman in her class at Still College of Osteopathy (now Des Moines University) in the 1940s.

Through much of her career, McCormick-Ohnemus' medical practice was adjacent to her home, and on an average day she would care for 40 patients in the office. She established herself as a dominant force in the osteopathic profession, supporting her school and hospital, keeping long office hours, driving to nursing homes in Indianola, making house calls and caring for patients in the hospital that was 40 miles away in Des Moines. McCormick-Ohnemus generously shared both her professional life and well as her personal life with her community, serving as Warren County Medical Examiner, on the Warren County Board of Health, and as a trustee of the Iowa Osteopathic Medical Association.

After her years of exemplary and loyal service to the community of Milo, Iowa, its community center was dedicated to her memory. She died February 22, 1996.

McCormick-Ohnemus was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 2009.