Pittsburgh-born and Houston-raised, Susan Smiley moved to central Ohio in 1977 when she transferred to The Ohio State University. It was there she met her future husband, Sam Smiley, now a dentist in Dublin.
Susan, who would go on to serve as president of the Dublin Women’s Club and be named an Emerald Ball Honoree alongside her husband, says they started with nothing, putting down roots in Dublin and building a legacy from the ground up. The couple have two daughters, Lauren and Katie.
Dublin Life: What was your first impression of Dublin when you moved to the city in 1986?
Susan Smiley: When we decided to move back to Columbus, someone advised us to check out Dublin. I remember thinking it was very rural with lots of cornfields. We weren’t sure there were enough people living in Dublin to support a dental practice, but we really liked a new commercial project on Blazer Parkway being built by Tony Gioffre. We were only 28 and 29 years old at the time, with absolutely no financial resources, but Tony took a chance on us and created a special deal that we could afford. We are still very grateful to people like Tony Gioffre and Margie Amorose of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce for helping us get established in our early years.
DL: How did you get involved, and what were some of your greatest accomplishments?
SS: I was an account executive for Physicians Health Plan, but I stopped working outside the home when Lauren was born since the practice cleared a few dollars for the first time ever that month. I enjoyed being a mom, but missed adult interaction. Joining the Dublin Women’s Club was a great solution. I made so many wonderful friends, and they even offered child care at all of our meetings.
I was very active in the club, eventually becoming president in 1992. We had 225 active members and raised $20,000 that year. I think my major accomplishment in the club was creating a project we called DWC Mission Mammography. We worked with The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute to bring a mobile mammography unit to Dublin and paid for mammograms for anyone who could not afford them.
I also served on Dublin Arts Council for a few years and chaired the Dublin Fund, was renamed the Dublin Foundation, in 2001. The Emerald Ball, was renamed the Emerald Celebration, was the major fundraiser for the Dublin Foundation. I co-chaired the Emerald Ball in 1991, which was the year we had a major blizzard on the day of the ball. People still refer to it as the “Blizzard Ball.” The biggest honor of my life was when Sam and I were named the Emerald Ball Honorees in 2003.
DL: You said you wrote columns for The Dublin Villager. What’s one thing you learned about Dublin from writing that column that’s stood out to you over the years?
SS: From 1990 to 1992, I wrote a column called “Around Town.” My job was to write short articles about five or six events happening in Dublin each week. I think that’s why I was named Dublin Citizen of the Year in 1990, an honor I shared with now-Dublin City Councilman John Reiner. It was a wonderful honor, but I was really just doing my job by promoting Dublin.
DL: What led you to move to Powell in 2011?
SS: We lived in Dublin for 25 years. Once our daughters left home for Washington, D.C. and Chicago after college, we decided to downsize. Our Realtor sold our home in 28 days. We weren’t prepared to move that quickly and had a difficult time finding an empty-nester home in Dublin.
We bought a small house in Powell, but really missed Dublin. It’s funny how you can feel so connected to a community. We missed living close to our friends, and Sam didn’t like living so far from the office. Dublin is a very special place with so many wonderful and interesting people. We are so happy to be back in the city where we raised our daughters and where we actually grew up ourselves.
DL: What do the next five years look like for you and your family?
SS: Sam and I are looking forward to doing a little remodeling of our new house to make it our own. We would love for our daughters to move back to Dublin or the Columbus area, but unfortunately, that’s not in their plans at this time. I would like to look at new opportunities to be involved in Dublin. The secret to feeling like you belong is to invest your time into making your community an even better place in which to live.
Hannah Bealer is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at hbealer@cityscenecolumbus.com.
