John MacQueen, whose work in pediatrics affected the lives of mothers and children across the country, died Wednesday after a seizure and heart attack following a prolonged struggle with dementia. He was 92.

Born in a small Kansas town, his career spanned decades as he worked to organize, provide, and finance health-related services to low-income mothers and their children and to children with disabilities and their families.

He wore several different hats: soldier-doctor, physician, professor, director, and president of numerous national, state, and local commissions.

“He was a very remarkable gent,” said Gertrude MacQueen, 89, his wife of 65 years. “His impact in the world of medicine is terrific. I am blessed to have known him and to be the mother of his children. There is going to be a big void.”

During World War II, MacQueen served at a frontline hospital during the Battle of the Bulge and was with the first medical unit to enter the Dachau concentration camp.

After the war, for some reason, they came to Iowa City, his wife said. He served as a staff physician at the medical school and established the pediatric neurology department in addition to serving as the director of the Iowa State Services for Crippled Children.

People have modeled programs for at-risk children on MacQueen’s, and he supported some of the first legislation to criminalize child abuse.

“Any one of the things that he actually did would have been a peak accomplishment for most people,” said his daughter, Jennifer Hamilton, 54, who now lives in Fairfield, Iowa.

His family and colleagues remember a tireless worker.

“I didn’t know that fathers actually came home at night and stayed home,” Hamilton said.

After retiring from the UI pediatrics department when he was 70, he joined the law school, teaching and serving as the codirector of the now-National Health Law and Policy Resource Center.

“He had a lot of colleagues and friends, not just in Iowa City, not just in Iowa, but throughout the U.S.,” said Josephine Gittler, a UI law professor and director of the resource center.

A group of MacQueen’s friends established a fund in his memory to support and carry on his work on behalf of mothers and children and others who have been left behind.

He pursued his hobbies like he worked.

When he decided to take up photography, he built a dark room. When he pursued gardening, he constructed a greenhouse. He read voraciously, traveled constantly and was famous for making up limericks on the spot.

But in 2002, his health began to decline after he hit his head during a fall. He began having difficulty speaking and increasingly had memory problems.

He spent the last two and a half years of his life at Atrium Village care center in Hills. All the staff loved him. He smiled at everyone, kissed them on the hand, Hamilton said.

The day before he died, his wife was by his side.

“We had a hell of a life,” she said. “There’s going to be a great gathering of the clan on Sunday. We are going to toast to him in champagne.”