William Eugene Marshall DDS

Marshall, William Eugene DDS MIDDLETON - Born May 4, 1923 - died May 6, 2007, Bill Marshall, age 84, of Middleton died peacefully on Sunday May 6, 2007, after suffering from several years of Alzheimers Disease. He was born May 4, 1923 in Waukesha. He grew up in a house next to his maternal grandparents, William and Emma Emslie. His childhood was highlighted by camping trips throughout Wisconsin and into Michigan and Canada with his parents, Charles and Eva, and his older sister Dorothy. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II and served for three years as a navigator on a C-47 transport. After the war, Bill enrolled in the University of Wisconsin where he received his Bachelors degree. Following this he attended Marquette Dental School and graduated in 1952. He married Ruth "Tim" Thimke in 1952 in her hometown, Shawano, and then moved to Madison, where he started a dental practice on the corner of Park Street and University Avenue in 1954. For the next ten years he built a well-respected and high quality dental practice. His four children were born during this time (Peter 1956, Todd 1957, Jeffrey 1958, and Abby 1962) when the family lived at 474 Togsted Glen in Madison. In 1963 Bill built a new dental office building, the Tregent, near Hilldale, and expanded his dental practice into one of the earliest dental group practices in the country, Associated Dentists. In 1964 Bill and Tim built a new home in Fox Bluff on Deer Path Lane in Middleton. It was there that Bill led the work of his family in making this dream house into a home with cleared woodlots, four horses, fenced pastures, and a garden. In 1971, Bill was recruited by the University of Connecticut Dental School as the Associate Dean for Patient Care, and the family moved to Avon, Connecticut. There he led the development of the new dental school training clinics and long term planning of the University of Connecticut Health Center for eleven years. During this time Bill wrote the book Group Practice and the Future of Dental Care and was a national leader in promoting high quality standards for dental group practices. In 1982 Bill and Tim moved back to Madison where he worked several more years as a dental practice consultant and owner of a dental practice on the East side of Madison. Bill finally retired in 1985 after which he devoted his energies to his beloved "Hill" property near their old Fox Bluff home that overlooked Lake Mendota and had a far-off view of the Capital. There he spent many hours each week, digging, planting, and building gardens near a stand of evergreens that he and the family had planted in the 1960s. He also made frequent trips to Emslie House, the old stone cottage that he bought in Mineral Point in 1969, and to Horseshoe Lake, in northeastern Wisconsin, where he worked in the woods around the old trailer at Black Bear Landing. In his last years as he slowed down he enjoyed exercising and visiting with friends at the Harbour Health Club in Middleton, working with his plants at home, and teasing his grandchildren. He is survived by his wife, Tim, and his children, Peter, Todd (Judi), Jeff (Fumi) and Abby (Seth) Studnicka, and by his grandchildren, Madeline, Isaac, Eve, Erika, Nadia and Ty. A private family service will be held at a later date.