Photo by Amanda DePerro
Dublin Life’s Storyteller Series focuses on the people who make Dublin great – people who have made improving the community a part of their lives, people who have been able to call Dublin home for a long time and people who have watched Dublin evolve over the years. The Storyteller Series tells the history of Dublin through his or her eyes, and sheds light on what living in Dublin was like decades ago. With the help of these special people, Dublin has undoubtedly become a better place.
From the moment I contacted Gene Bostic for the Storyteller Series, he was a gentleman. Twenty-four hours before we had planned to meet, Gene called me to ask what I’d like to drink during our meeting. I told him water would be fine. Ice or no? No ice, please, but chilled water would be just fine.
He met me in his driveway, and took off his hat when he shook my hand. We sat on the patio in his perfectly-groomed back yard on a warm but breezy April day and made small talk while I set myself up and sipped my chilled water. He spoke so softly that I was nervous my recorder wouldn’t pick up his voice.
Gene Bostic is 79 years old, and was born on Aug. 21, 1937. He hails from a small town called Eagle’s Nest, and was stationed at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base during his time in the Air Force from 1956-76. He met his wife, Patricia, a Clintonville native, and the two married in 1961. After getting out of the Air Force, Gene was contacted by a friend who was working as a fire safety inspector in what was then Washington-Perry Township.
“I got a call from him sometime in January of February of ’77,” Gene tells me. “He said, ‘I’m leaving. I’m going to work for the Army out there at Fort Hayes. Maybe you’ll think about coming up here?’”
One thing led to another, and on April 14, 1977, Gene began as fire safety inspector of Washington-Perry Township. On April 28, Patricia and Gene would move to their home on Coffman Road – the same home where they would raise two daughters and welcome grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and the same home where Gene and I sat in April 2017, 33 years later, nearly to the day.
Between 1970 and 1980, Dublin grew in population from 681 to 3,855. However, Dublin was still a village until receiving city status in 1987, 10 years after Gene and Patricia moved in. I asked Gene whether it was hard moving into such a small village, especially one with such a tight-knit population where it seemed everyone was family.
“Being an outsider coming into Dublin, back in those days, it was so close-knit,” he says, listing some names not unfamiliar to the Storyteller Series: the Headlees, Joneses, Richards. “I love being here. They welcomed me.”
In 1985, two years after Washington-Perry Township split, Gene was promoted to chief of Washington Township. In May of 2002, Gene retired, but he still stays involved in the City as trustee for Washington Township.
On the topic of retirement, I ask Gene what he enjoys doing in his spare time now.
“What are you talking about, ‘spare time?’” he asks. “I’m busy all the time.”
Patricia suffered a broken hip and has had multiple knee replacements, so Gene has been a full-time caregiver (“She’s doing much better,” Gene says). He stays very active in St. Brigid of Kildare Church, of which Gene and Patricia were founding members, and he does repair work as needed at the Golf Club of Dublin.
Gene pauses to tell me stories here and there. We talk about the new construction at Bridge Park and the new plans for the Columbus Metropolitan Library Dublin branch, and he tells me that he used to study in the Dublin library, when it was a trailer, as a Columbus State Community College (then Columbus Technical Institute) student. He says he would sit in the back of the trailer – next to a “no food or drink” poster – and study with a sandwich and a can of soda. He tells me about the corn fields that sat where Wendy’s headquarters is now, and where St. Brigid mass was held before the church on Avery was built. At one point, he tells me, it was held in a home that overlooked the 18th hole of Muirfield Village Golf Course. However, Gene comes back to what brought him and Patricia to Dublin in the first place: the fire department.
“I loved it, and we had some of the best people,” he says. “It was a part of my life.”
Gene and I talk more about Dublin’s growth, and what it will look like in the future. His lawn is green and lush, toys are corralled into a section of the porch on which we sit, and swings sway in the breeze.
“People say, ‘When are you leaving?’” Gene says. “I say, ‘When the man takes me out.’”
I take some pictures of Gene (“Do I have to smile?”) before leaving. Gene takes off his hat to shake my hand again, and we hug. I pull out of his driveway and head down Coffman Road, thinking about how many times in my last 20 years as a resident that I’ve used that road. I try to imagine how many more times Gene must’ve driven it, and mull over what we’d talked about.
“I’ve got a saying,” Gene says. “I try to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason.”
Amanda DePerro is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
