Sharing stories at the Dublin Village Tavern with Becky Eger Atcheson and Kelli Hayes Wilcox was an absolute treat. I knew they had grown up in Historic Dublin but I wasn’t expecting Becky to say, “Oh look, that’s my dad in the photo on the wall next to us.”
Sure enough, there was a black-and-white picture of George Eger, Fire Captain for the Washington Township Fire Department.
“We grew up next door and my dad would leave his fire hat and pants on the banister so he could grab them and run over to the firehouse when the red phone rang,” Eger Atcheson says.
Eger Atcheson’s grandfather, Dan Eger, built a lot of the stone walls that you see around Dublin and he was a bus driver for Dublin City Schools. He lived across the street from her family, where Our CupCakery is currently located.
From 1951-1991, Eger Atcheson’s family lived in the two-story house on High Street where two parents and six children shared a three-bed, one-bath home.
Eger Atcheson was the youngest, born in 1964, and the four girls shared one bedroom while the two boys had the other bedroom. The full bath was downstairs off of the kitchen and eventually her dad built an outside shower for the boys.
There was no running water in the house in 1951 so her mom would walk to the well on High Street and carry water back.
“We used to play with the well when we were little in the ‘70s,” Hayes Wilcox says. “We also played on the steps that were still there from when the stagecoach stopped in old Dublin.”
Hayes Wilcox lived a block away on Franklin Street, down the road from Tommy Iaconno’s family, owner of the well-known Italian restaurants. Mary Emma Bailey, whom Bailey Elementary School is named after, was a historian and schoolteacher and lived across the street from Hayes Wilcox. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 99.
Hayes Wilcox’s older sister and Eger Atcheson were best friends and had a lot of fun playing in Historic Dublin.
Kelli Hayes Wilcox and Becky Eger Atcheson
“We considered ourselves River Rats,” Eger Atcheson says. “We used to fish in the Scioto River with my mom, gut and clean the bass in the garage and serve them for dinner.”
They also went out at night with flashlights to catch frogs. That’s when the Kiwanis Frog Jump competition was a smalltown event and held on the Sells Middle School football field.
“We practiced so much with our frogs that we wore them out,” Hayes Wilcox jokes. “There was a frog truck where you could basically rent a frog if you didn’t catch one and there were big prizes for winners like a boom box or a bike.”
The two remember always spending time outside. They would roller skate and play Kick-the-Can easily on High Street because there were hardly any cars and certainly no traffic. They went skating on the Karrer family pond off of High Street or in a lagoon off of the Scioto River.
“Our parents used to send us snipe hunting at night,” Eger Atcheson says. “They gave us pillowcases and flashlights to hunt them in the cemetery or in the cornfields at Tuller’s farm, where Tuller Road is now.”
It was a practical joke that dates back to the 1840s and other than the bird, there is no furry animal called a snipe, but they had a great time.
Other exciting happenings in Dublin was when the Bookmobile came around. It was like a library in an airstream camper where you could check out books and return them the next week or so. And Kentucky Fried Chicken actually had a food truck that parked at the old gas station on the corner of Bridge and High Streets.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, they had a huge bonfire the night before DHS Homecoming. The next day, seniors would throw toilet paper on the trees and houses along High Street and have a parade with floats to the high school.
There was a drive-in movie theater where Wendy’s International Headquarters is now and Hayes Wilcox says she could sit on the roof of her house and see the movies playing. Eger Atcheson and her friends would sneak extra people in and remembers seeing Herbie the Love Bug, The Parent Trap, Escape from Witch Mountain and Saturday Night Fever.
Dublin families shopped at the A&P in Linworth for groceries and got ice cream at Baskin Robbins on Henderson Road or Dairy Queen in Linworth.
For pizza, they went to Chris’ Pizza on 161, Varsity Pizza on Dublin Road or Lombardis on High Street. To swim, they drove to the public pool in Shawnee Hills or Butlers Pool where Scioto Park and the Leatherlips monument is located now.
There was a St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Eger Atcheson’s father was the first Grand Leprechaun, and a parade for Independence Day where the kids decorated their bikes with crepe paper.
The Memorial Tournament was a big event, so students could get the week off from school if they volunteered at the tournament. School was closed for the Pro-Am day and Hayes Wilcox remembers meeting Gerald Ford, who was in Dublin to play golf.
This October, the Dublin Historical Society Museum will open in the same house that Eger Atcheson used to call home. The opening will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Dublin Historical Society and will eventually be the starting point for all Dublin walking tours.
Clay Rose is the immediate past president and treasurer of the Dublin Historical Society and a Board of Trustees member. Rose is a 70-year Dublin resident who graduated from DHS in 1970 as part of the first class with more than 100 students. All of his children graduated from a Dublin High school, as did his parents in the 1940s.
“We are excited to have the museum in historic Dublin and have been working on conceptualizing exhibits including a timeline with the progression of roads, houses and subdivisions,” says Rose. “I’ve always been amazed at the planners who made sure there was a balance of residential and commercial properties in Dublin to ensure that their descendants would have a great place to live.”
Colleen D’Angelo is a Dublin Life columnist and freelance writer. She and her husband, Tony, raised three children in Dublin over the past 25 years. Colleen enjoys playing and teaching pickleball; walking her pup, Mason; and travelling internationally. You can reach her at colleendangelo1@gmail.com.
