After 62 years in Plant City, Dr. William Midyette is finally retiring at age 90.
As a high school student in Winter Haven, Dr. William Midyette had his sights set on becoming an electrical engineer. But after one of his friends told him about his uncle’s career as a dentist, Midyette shifted his focus. He was attracted to a dentist’s ability to live anywhere, anytime.
“I didn’t want to live in Cleveland and be at a desk all day,” Midyette said.
For the last 62 years, Midyette has done anything but sit still. After setting up shop in Plant City in 1957, he retired on Dec. 31, 2015. The decision was his second milestone of the year.
“I accidentally in the process turned 90 a few months ago,” Midyette said.
Now, he’s focusing on his retirement — a well-deserved respite for a doctor who has left a toothy legacy in the town he’s come to call home.
DIFFERENT KIND OF SERVICE
Midyette’s dental dreams were temporarily put on hold after his high school graduation because of World War II. Midyette became a Merchant Marine and boarded a ship that dropped him and the rest of his troop in New Guinea, the second-largest island in the world.
“It’s four to five times the size of Florida,” Midyette said.
Far from home, the island was unlike anything Midyette could have imagined. New Guinea, he said, was riddled with native cannibals and dense with Japanese troops.
Midyette was in the Merchant Marines for three years, during which he and other troops helped liberate the Philippines.
When he returned to the United States, Midyette had to make his next move.
“I decided that I probably needed to go to school,” he said.
After completing his undergraduate studies in Gainesville, Midyette had to travel out of state to go to dental school. At that time, there were no dental schools in the state of Florida, he said.
“I went to Emory,” Midyette said. “It was the only dental school in the area.”
Midyette graduated in 1954 and served in the military again, this time the U.S. Army, for two years. As one of 60 dentists in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Midyette began putting his education to work by removing the ruined teeth of between 15,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops.
Once he left the Army, Midyette practiced in Elijay, Georgia, before moving to his final destination — one where he had far fewer dentists to compete with.
THE THIRD DENTIST
When Midyette arrived in Plant City in 1957, there were only two other dentists in town, he said. He worked in an office above what is now The Corner Store on Reynolds Street, before moving to an office across the street from South Florida Baptist Hospital. He remembers the growth of the town and the friendly lunches that were held at the town drugstores.
“I’ve enjoyed dentistry,” Midyette said. “I feel like I’ve extracted teeth for nearly everybody in Plant City.”
When Midyette announced his plans to retire, he had somewhere between 700 and 800 active client accounts. While some only come for necessary dental work, such as toothaches or tooth extractions, many of Midyette’s other clients came to him for their routine dental work. Some of his clients have had their families go to him for four generations.
“He had a ton of patients that have never been to another dentist,” his wife, Laura Midyette, said. The couple married in 1990. “I think he’s been a blessing to the community and community-minded.”
But his clients aren’t limited to Plant City. Midyette and his wife have traveled to Guatemala and Honduras 17 times to perform free dental work in church yards. He carried his supplies with him and mostly extracted teeth.
“Guatemala is very sophisticated,” Midyette said. “Pyramids store water and feed large populations.”
Between his free work in Central America and free work through his practice, Midyette estimates that he has between $1,000,000 and $3,000,000 in uncollected bills.
“That’s not something I think about or worry about,” he said.
“I feel like I’ve extracted teeth for nearly everybody in Plant City.”
— Dr. William Midyette
Though he won’t be in his office anymore, Midyette hasn’t retired from his lifetime of service. A member of First Presbyterian Church of Plant City, he plans on visiting the congregation’s shut-ins, as well as his family’s grave sites. In the past, he served on the South Florida Baptist Hospital board of directors for 20 years and is a former president of the West Coast Dental Association.
“I’m trying to figure out what I want to do,” Midyette said. “I liked (dentistry). It’s been good for me.”
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.
OFFICE SPACE
The walls of Dr. William Midyette’s office tell a story of his years in the dental business, and they are decorated with pictures of the homes he grew up in throughout his childhood.
He keeps copies of National Geographic on the coffee table in the waiting room and never throws them out.
“You can pick up one 20 years old and still find things you didn’t know,” Midyette said. He’s been reading the magazine for as long as he’s had a mailing addresss.
“The more I learn, the more I realize what I don’t know,” Midyette said. “There’s too much to learn.”
But the office walls and magazines aren’t just tributes to Midyette’s interests. Like any dentist, he also has a sign warning about the effects of sugar. Chewing Big Red gum and drinking Mountain Dew are especially bad, he said.
TRADE SECRET
Dr. William Midyette has only had one implant, which he needed after accidentally biting a bone in some meat.
“I’ve been able to keep most of my teeth beyond 90,” he said.
The secret? Baking soda.
Midyette brushes his teeth with baking soda and water twice a day, usually before breakfast and after dinner.
Toothpaste, he said, is strictly a taste thing.
FAST FACT:
Midyette has belonged to an elite group known as Fellow of the American College of Dentists since 1980.
