Du Quoin still missing 'Doc,' a longtime dentist

Dr. David Marsden passed away in February, but the imprint he left on Du Quoin will last a long time. Marsden practiced family dentistry for more than 30 years in Du Quoin, so well known he was just called "Doc."
From his warm, caring manner to his involvement in multiple civic organizations, Marsden left his imprint on the Du Quoin community.
He passed away Feb. 3, at the age of 67.
"He was the most caring, giving man," says Teresa Hill, who worked in Marsden's practice for nine years. "He was always the first one here and the last to leave."
Marsden stayed true to his southern Illinois roots. He grew up in Benton and attended Benton High School before earning his undergraduate degree at Southern Illinois University.
During his last year of college, he joined classmates in applying to dental school at the University of Illinois in Champaign.
The group would go on to open practices near each other in southern Illinois and remain lifelong colleagues.
Marsden obtained his degree in dentistry in 1974 and two years later he established his own practice in Du Quoin.
He stayed active in dentistry through his membership in the Southern Illinois Dental Society, and he promoted the field through classes he taught in John A. Logan College's dental assistance program.
"He was very involved in the community and that was an extension of his practice," Hill adds.
His participation ran the gamut from joining the Du Quoin Chamber of Commerce and the Elks and Rotary clubs in Du Quoin, to sitting on the boards of the Du Quoin National Bank and Marshall Browning Hospital.
In all, Marsden served 23 years as a director of the hospital before stepping down in 2011. A highlight of his service was working with the board and hospital administrators to open the hospital's new wing in 2008, which featured all private rooms, a new surgical suite, pharmacy, inpatient rehab area and laboratory.
But it was Marsden's dedication to his dental patients that remains his legacy. Hill tells of Marsden answering an emergency call for a patient in pain and opening up his office
on Super Bowl Sunday to treat her.
"If he had to do any major dental work on a patient, he would take the patient's chart home so that he could call and check in on them that night," Hill adds. "That's how caring he was."
Marsden was a sole practitioner whose patients came not only from Du Quoin, but from Pinckneyville, Elkville and Benton, to name a few.
Marsden sold the practice to Dr. Isaac Davison, a former patient, in 2008.
Services have been held.
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