Sensational Seniors – October 2019

This “Sensational Seniors” article features much-loved dentist, Bill Brodie, who retired in 2011 after 37 years of operating a dental clinic in Jacksonville. A native Oregonian, Bill was born on May 15, 1945 in the Belle Knife Hospital in Coquille, Oregon—a small hospital that his grandmother, a nurse, had started. While born in Coquille, his early life was lived in nearby Myrtle Point where his father had a small lumber mill and owned a downtown lumberyard and building supply store.

All of Bill’s early education days were spent in Myrtle Point with him graduating from Myrtle Point High School in 1963. He was an active high school student, playing in the band, serving as a class officer, playing baseball and wrestling. As a second baseman, his team finished second in the state in 1963. Upon graduation from high school, he entered Oregon State University in a pre-dental program. “I really wasn’t certain if I wanted to be a dentist, but I did know that I wanted to major in some aspect of medicine. My grandmother probably had a lot to do with this decision. I knew I liked to work with my hands and dentistry seemed to fit.”

Bill spent three years at OSU before transferring to the University of Oregon Dental School in Portland where he was to spend four years before getting his doctorate degree in dentistry in 1970. Bill remembers this as a time when a hard-working student could go to college and emerge without much, if any, debt. “I was fortunate to be able to get good- paying summer jobs either working at my dad’s mill or setting chokers for a logging company. I always say that the physical demands of setting chokers really helped me decide to stay in school and get my degree even though dental school was very demanding and forced me to buckle down and concentrate.”

While in dental school, Bill met Linda Marshall who was studying to be a dental hygienist. Ironically, Linda was from Coquille and was born in the same hospital as Bill, but they had never met until dental school. While the demands of dental school were many, Bill was very happy his junior and senior years when he started working more with patients. “At first this was really scary, but, when I got more comfortable working inside someone’s mouth, I felt good about what I was doing to improve a patient’s dental health.” Young Bill Brodie graduated with honors from dental school in 1970. This time was the height of the Vietnam War, and Bill, rather than wait to be drafted, enlisted in the Army, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He remembers, “My time in the service, serving as a dental intern, taught me a lot, mainly to respect people who served in the military at a time when they were often spit upon. That was no way a service man or woman should be treated.”

While on active duty, he realized how much he missed the companionship of Linda Marshall, and she felt the same, so on March 7, 1971 they were married. After Fort Bragg, the young married couple spent two years in Philadelphia where Bill worked at an Army base.

Once out of the service he and Linda went in search of a place to practice his chosen profession. He first landed in White City, Oregon working with a dental school friend, and then started looking around for a small community that was close to a larger city where he could start his own practice. Jacksonville, with its historic heritage, seemed like the perfect place, and in 1974 he opened his first clinic on North 5th Street. He remembers, “We had to be very conservative as opening a dental practice is a slow process. You just don’t open the doors, and people rush in. We were determined that we would minimize our debt and any debt we assumed was going to be paid off as quickly as possible. At the onset, Linda worked in a dental office in Grants Pass. What she made is what we lived on. What I made went right back into the dental clinic.”

While it was initially a slow process building a patient base, it did happen, and eventually he took care of the dental needs of several hundred people on a yearly basis. In the process, Dr. Brodie became a much loved and respected dentist, a good deal of this because of his warm and caring personality. “My patients were so nice, and many became good friends. In addition, I had a wonderful group of ladies who worked for me which enhanced my clinic and made my professional life so pleasant.”

As Bill’s practice grew so did his family. Daughter Michele was born in 1977, followed by son, Scott in 1979. Later Scott and his wife, Kyleen, gave Bill two grandsons who Bill maintains, “keep me going.” In 2003, a longtime dream was fulfilled when Bill was able to build and move into a spacious and modern clinic further down the road on North 5th Street. The incentive for this move was the fact that Scott was finishing up dental school and was anxious to join his father in the new facility which he did in 2004. In 2011 Scott purchased the practice when Bill retired.

As Dr. Brodie’s practice grew, he and Linda started traveling. Yearly, they looked forward to attending a favorite dental seminar in Kauai, Hawaii. “Kauai is a beautiful place; the seminars were always very good and held in the morning, so the afternoon was free, and it was all tax deductible!” They also enjoyed travel to England, Scotland, Italy, Spain and Israel as well as doing dental mission work first in Honduras and later at the Carmen Serdan Mission in Mexico as well as several other places. They did this mission work for over 20 years. Recently, Bill attended a missionary reunion at Carmen Serdan to help with handicapped orphans.

Bill’s retirement life was shattered on September 28, 2014 when Linda died suddenly. A devout Christian (he and Linda were baptized in the Applegate River), Bill is comforted by the fact that “I know where she is, and this gives me much peace and comfort. But I still miss her a lot.”

Bill, who lives just outside of the Jacksonville city limits is very attached to the village. “I love the people of Jacksonville and the historical aspect and pleasant countryside. I attend Jacksonville Presbyterian Church and Applegate Christian Fellowship and enjoy their weekly Bible studies. I also enjoy hiking the Jacksonville Woodlands trails, doing grounds work at the Beekman Arboretum and eating at the great restaurants of Jacksonville.” Bill Brodie is yet another person who makes Jacksonville such a great place to live.