Dublin Life’s Storyteller Series focuses on the people who make Dublin great – people who have made improving the community a part of their life, 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.
Along the Storyteller Series, each of the six Storytellers has been vibrant and interesting. As a Dublin resident since I was 3 years old, it’s been a true privilege for me to see Dublin through the eyes of men and women who lived here long before Dublin was even a City. Each has shared with me wildly differing stories, and for every word in each of the Storyteller Series articles, I truly believe I could have written 10. The Dublin they grew up in – a small farming community called “the Village” (not “the City”) – was starkly different to the one I grew up in, and the one Dublin residents know today.
Each of the six Storytellers also had many experiences in common. They have told me about their interactions with Ethel Artz, the woman who owned the plot of land on the river across from the Dublin library. Dublin children dubbed the land where Ethel kept and milked her cows “Ethel’s Bottom” (and, I learned, some of them got along better than others with Ethel). I learned about Dublin’s Saturday movie nights, in which a huge sheet was hung between the buildings of Historic Dublin. Villagers dragged their chairs into the road and the town watched movies right there in the middle of Bridge Street.
There was one other thing that the Storytellers asked me time and time again: “Have you talked to Dick Termeer yet? You need to talk to Dick Termeer.”
So, for the start of the New Year, I resolved to talk to Dick Termeer.
Photo by Amanda DePerro
Dick Termeer holding a painting of the home he grew up in (right) on Bridge Street. The home is now a parking lot.
Dick and Marilyn Termeer. Photo courtesy of Dick Termeer
I was greeted at the door by Dick’s wife of 63 years, Marilyn. The Termeers’ living room has photos of family members old and new, from the couple’s three granddaughters to Dick’s great-grandfather, who fought in the Civil War. Marilyn notes that they still have his canteen, bayonet and knapsack.
Dick’s family has been in Dublin since 1814, when his mother’s family came from western Pennsylvania after the Revolutionary War.
“Soldiers who fought for the colonies were given land as pay,” Dick says. “I’ve always wondered if whoever gave them this land – this new government – thought it was worth anything.”
Dick’s father, Al, worked at Dick’s grandfather’s company, Columbus Store Fixture, building furniture for restaurants, such as booths and bars, out of wood. The business took a hit and shut down during the Great Depression, but made a full recovery afterward. Dick’s grandfather also worked as postmaster in what is now the site of the Dublin Village Tavern in Historic Dublin. A large painting of the Dublin Village Tavern, as it stood in the late 1920s, hangs above Dick and Marilyn’s couch in the living room. Next to the old post office, Dick points out in the painting, is the house in which he was born: 25 S. High St., now a parking lot. Dick lived in that house until he was 21.
Then, postmasters changed with the presidency, and Dick’s grandfather was postmaster during Herbert Hoover’s term. After two Democratic commanders-in-chief, when Dwight Eisenhower was sworn in, the position of postmaster opened back up, and Dick’s mother, Ruthella, took the position. And Ruthella was postmaster – not postmistress.
“Oh no. She said, ‘I am no man’s mistress,’” says Marilyn, laughing. “She was a very strong-willed woman.”
Like many of the Village children, Dick spent a lot of his time in the summers swimming with his friends and three brothers in the Scioto River. The Scioto River was much lower during Dick’s childhood, and he would frequent the Old Rock swimming hole – now submerged. Old Rock served two purposes: swimming hole and bath for practically all of Dublin in the summers.
Dick’s freshman year of high school was the first year that Dublin had a football team, and both he and his older brother, Jerry, a senior at the time, signed up. In the first Dublin school football game ever, Dick and Jerry made history. Dick was put in during the last play, and handed the ball off to Jerry, who ran it in for Dublin’s first-ever touchdown.
“That’s my claim to fame,” says Dick. “I’ve always said that I was a third-string quarterback on a 22-man team. Now, you’ve gotta add that up a bit.”
Dick and Marilyn owe some of their Dublin expertise to Dick’s oldest brother, Al Jr., who, after passing away last spring, left many of his belongings to Dick and Marilyn. Al Jr. never saw combat due to Germany’s surrender while he was in basic training in 1945, but Al Jr. and his parents wrote each other every day for the 10 months he was in Germany. While cleaning out Al Jr.’s attic, Marilyn and Dick were delighted to find them all.
“Al saved every one of those letters,” says Marilyn. “We had the best time reading those letters because they just tell everything about how Dublin was in the ’40s. Standing in line for two hours to get meat, they tell about what the kids are doing. (Dick) was 12 years old, and it just is funny to find out what kind of child he was.”
On the left is the Dublin Village Tavern, what used to be the post office at which Dick Termeer's mother worked. On the right is the house Dick lived in until he was 21, now a parking lot. Photo courtesy of Dick Termeer.
“The funny thing is how my brother saved them, and then every now and then sent a package of them home,” says Dick. “Al wouldn’t let anyone throw them away.”
Now retired, Dick taught in various central Ohio high schools. Dick and Marilyn moved to Powell two years ago to be between their two daughters, but all three of their children - Rick, Becki and Bobbie - live in central Ohio. Marilyn notes that their children have never lived more than 15 minutes away.
Despite their move to Powell, the Termeers still get back into Dublin nearly every day, and remain members of the Dublin Community Church. And Dick remains grateful for the childhood he was afforded by living in Dublin.
“We had a lot of fun growing up, and we didn’t have a lot, but it didn’t make a difference,” says Dick. “It was good for us.”
Amanda DePerro is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at hbealer@cityscenecolumbus.com.
