In 1980 McDonnell was awarded the NAS Award in Aeronautical Engineering from the National Academy of Sciences. He was succeeded as Chair of McDonnell Douglas by his nephew Sanford N. McDonnell in 1980. McDonnell Douglas and Boeing consolidated in 1997. Personal life James McDonnell was married twice. His first marriage, to Mary Elizabeth Finney, took place in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 30, 1934. They had two children, James Smith McDonnell, III, born January 28, 1936, and John Finney McDonnell, born March 18, 1938. Mary McDonnell died on July 6, 1949. He married Priscilla Brush Forney on April 1, 1956, and adopted her three children from a previous marriage. McDonnell died of a stroke on August 22, 1980. He was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. Legacy McDonnell founded the James S. McDonnell Foundation in 1950, which supports scientific, educational, and charitable causes on a local, national, and international level. The McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences is named after him, which he co-founded - established in 1974. McDonnell Hall, housing part of the physics department at his alma mater, Princeton, also bears his name and an airplane-inspired design. The six James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professorships at Princeton University were established by a gift from the James S. McDonnell Foundation in memory of James S. McDonnell. Among the Princeton faculty members who have held the professorship are Val Fitch, Joseph Taylor, Anne Treisman, Curtis G. Callan, Lyman A. Page, Eddie S. Glaude, and numerous others. Tributes McDonnell Park in St. Louis County is named in honor of James Smith McDonnell, as are the McDonnell Planetarium of the Saint Louis Science Center in Forest Park, the James S. McDonnell classroom and laboratory building at Princeton University, the James S. McDonnell Hall at Washington University in St Louis, and James S. McDonnell Boulevard and James S. McDonnell Prologue Room near St. Louis Lambert International Airport. The Arkansas Aviation Historical Society selected McDonnell in 1980 as one of five initial inductees in the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame. McDonnell was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1977. Notes 1899 births 1980 deaths American aerospace businesspeople American aerospace designers American aerospace engineers Burials at Bellefontaine Cemetery Businesspeople in aviation Collier Trophy recipients Little Rock Central High School alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni McDonnell Douglas Princeton University alumni American people of Scottish descent 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American businesspeople Washington