ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Sitting in Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl — a downtown meeting spot as quintessential to Zanesville as she is — Dorothy Montgomery casually detailed the history of the quaint restaurant, pointing out founder Jack Hemmer’s portrait proudly displayed on the back wall and explaining the local origins of the mainstay’s offerings.
In no hurry to order, she kindly asked the waitress for more time to look at the menu — not that she needed it.
Dorothy always orders the same thing because it was her late daughter Nancy’s favorite: a Virginia ham sandwich, composed of a bun, a slice of ham, iceberg lettuce and relish to top it off, and a large banana split, which she likes to share.
“Hello beautiful!” one patron exclaimed as soon as he spotted Dorothy while walking through the front door. Another woman stopped to catch up and share with Dorothy that her grandfather built the sweets counter, which houses nut and candy assortments made by Ben Heggy Candy Company in Canton, Ohio.
When asked how she’s doing, she simply says she’s well.
“I like small towns where everybody knows everybody,” Dorothy said as a friend, likely someone she mentored in the Muskingum County 4-H Junior Leadership Club, departed.
Living in Muskingum County for most of her life and volunteering to guide its youth through 4-H for over 70 years, the 93-year-old is the unofficial spokesperson for the county, according to her daughter, Susan McDonald.
“She has made herself part of her community, and her community loves her,” Susan said.
She served on 4-H advisory committees for Ohio State Extension at county, district and state levels. She was inducted into the Ohio 4-H Hall of Fame in 1990, and last year she reached her 70-year milestone as a 4-H volunteer, making her the longest-serving volunteer in Muskingum County 4-H history.
Dorothy will be honored alongside other longtime volunteers on March 8 during the Ohio 4-H Volunteer Recognition Luncheon at the Ohio 4-H Conference, taking place at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, 400 N High St., Columbus, Ohio.
“She’s had a tremendous impact on young people as leaders, who’ve become leaders in our community and leaders in other places, through encouragement, through setting high expectations for being the definition of a community servant,” said Jamie McConnell, Muskingum County 4-H youth development extension educator.
She got her start in 4-H
Dorothy Culbertson was born during the Great Depression on Oct. 4, 1931. She grew up on her family’s 240-acre farm, Twin Maple Stock Farm, which bordered The Wilds — 10,000 acres of grasslands, forests and lakes — in the southeast corner of Muskingum County. According to Montgomery, her great-grandfather received the land as payment for fighting in the Revolutionary War. The Culbertsons’ farm raised sheep, hogs, horses, chickens, turkeys and Hereford cattle.
When she was 10 years old, she discovered her brother Malcolm’s long-forgotten 4-H hog pen with “Meigs Lop-eared Pig Club” scrolled on the side in their family’s barn. Malcolm was 27 years older than his Dorothy decided she wanted to get her start in 4-H, too. However, she wasn’t interested in raising pigs. She would sew, and Malcolm’s wife would teach her.
Dorothy joined the Muskingum County 4-H Junior Leadership Club in her teens, and from there, 4-H took her all over the country. Throughout her career, she wore outfits she made, like the green-and-white-striped dress and matching white purse she designed specifically to wear to the National 4-H Conference in Washington, D.C. one year.
She met her husband, John Montgomery, at 4-H Camp Ohio in Utica, Ohio, in 1949, the summer before she started college at Muskingum University to study education. John was attending Ohio State University, working towards his bachelor’s degree in rural sociology as a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. He caught Dorothy’s eye as a lifeguard that summer, and she caught his as the camp’s music director.
“That’s where we met, yes, but I never did learn to swim,” Dorothy said, with a laugh.
Following John’s graduation from OSU in December 1952, he served as a first lieutenant in the United States Air Force from March 1953 to 1955. Shortly after he was transferred from Scott Air Force Base in St. Clair County, Illinois to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, the couple started considering marriage.
“John said, ‘You know, if we were married, you could come down to Tampa and spend Christmas break with me,’” Dorothy said.
They were married on Sept. 25, 1953, the Friday after that initial discussion, in the neighboring town of New Concord, Ohio. They celebrated their wedding reception at Dorothy’s religion professor’s house with only her professor, his wife, who was also her sorority advisor, her maid of honor and John’s best man in attendance. Her family found out two weeks later.
It wasn’t until 1956 after John’s service in the Air Force ended that they moved back to Muskingum County to stay and took over the 4-H junior leaders program.
Norman Rockwell home
They started with 20 acres of wheat and an old barn. In time, John built Dorothy what Susan would describe as a “Norman Rockwell home” — a 2,848-square-foot, two-story home with four bedrooms and three bathrooms, complete with a wood-paneled office where every piece of lumber was sourced from the farm of her youth. Over the years, Colonial Heights Farm, as it would come to be called, grew to 130 acres, and John and Dorothy raised cattle and grew Christmas trees, in addition to working off-farm jobs.
Dorothy retired from teaching, mostly first grade in Zanesville, after 18 years when her daughter Nancy was born in 1971. Two years later, Susan was born in 1973, and the Mongomerys’ family was complete.
Growing up two years apart, Nancy and Susan knew nothing but 4-H, according to Susan. They took eight to 12 projects a year. Their summers were filled with gardening projects and walking their steers. They refinished furniture and redecorated their bedrooms. They did laundry projects and photography projects. They sewed the dresses they wore to formals when they were older.
As Nancy and Susan got more involved, so did Dorothy. From the Muskingum County 4-H advisory committee all the way to the state-level committee, as Dorothy opened more doors, her daughters got even more opportunities — state camps, conservation camp, leadership camp, sea camp, National 4-H Congress and more. As part of the States’ 4-H International Exchange Program, Nancy went to Japan and Susan got to go to Australia.
As advisors of the junior leaders program, John and Dorothy also took groups on weekend camping trips, held square dances to raise funds for the club, did community service projects and threw memorable parties for the 4-H’ers in their basement.
The couple also welcomed church groups, neighborhood kids and family from both sides into their home for holiday and birthday celebrations. Their home was a safe, welcoming place for generations of their community, Susan said.
“It was this big, old, beautiful house, perfectly decorated for Christmas, and it was magical,” Susan said.
The Mongomerys’ basement ran the full length of the house, complete with a kitchen, bathroom and fireplace with a painting of Vesper Hill, an outdoor sanctuary at Camp Ohio, hung above it. The junior leaders program had 130 members during its height, and they would fill the Montgomerys’ basement with Dorothy at the center of it all.
“She represents the good old days,” Susan said. “She represents a high moral character. She represents a leader. She represents all the good things that you remember in your childhood and your youth, like the stay-at-home mom, the school teacher, the homemade meals, the welcoming house.”
The next chapter
Nancy ended her 4-H career as the Muskingum County Fair Queen in 1989. Then, Nancy and Susan were both selected to attend the National 4-H Congress in Chicago in October 1990. It was supposed to be the big climax of their shared 4-H experience, Susan said. But Nancy would never make it to the national congress.
On Oct. 3, 1990, Nancy died in a car accident — the same day Dorothy was inducted into the Ohio 4-H Hall of Fame.
“I still have people come up to me and they say, ‘I know where I was the day your sister passed. I was at school. I was at college. I was at a doctor’s appointment.’ It’s like when 9/11 happened or something like you just remember the moment,” Susan said.
Susan was at 4-H camp with her favorite high school friends and her future husband, James McDonald. She had already planned on leaving to attend Dorothy’s hall of fame induction at Ohio State, so she left all of her belongings in her cabin and waited to be picked up.
“They called and said they were late, and I kind of jokingly said, ‘Oh, they’re always late. That’s our family,’” Susan said.
When her dad arrived with her neighbors to get her, he met her near the nurses’ station and told her Nancy had passed away.
“My dad told me that my sister had passed right there at Camp Ohio, the most magical, wonderful place in the whole wide world,” Susan said.
Then, they went to Ohio State and sat through the Ohio 4-H Hall of Fame ceremony.
“Nobody knew. Mom and Dad did not say a word. We got through it, which I can’t even imagine, looking back, how they were strong enough to do that,” Susan said.
Shortly after Nancy’s death, Dorothy won the election for Muskingum County Commissioner, becoming the second woman to hold that office in the county. It was a mixed blessing, to be put in such a powerful position while grieving an incredible loss.
“I just have always had the thought that my friends knew I needed something to do,” Dorothy said. “They put me in there, and they kept me there for four terms, and it was delightful.”
Dorothy’s life became meetings, 4-H, traveling with John and more meetings.
“I took my mind off of things,” she said.
During her 16 years as county commissioner, the community saw a lot of changes, including its first industrial park, which sits across the street from Colonial Heights Farm and includes businesses such as Halliburton, Bilco, Grupo Bimbo and a Dollar General distribution center that sees over 2,000 trucks in and out every day.
“I’m proud of her,” Susan said. “I did not always appreciate her as a child when she was strict and pushing me and held me to high standards. I think that now, as an attorney, I see broken homes and children with no hope and no drive. So I greatly appreciate it, and I just hope to be able to continue that and give hope to young people and keep our community strong and the next generation moving in the right direction.”
Another generation
Dorothy passed leadership of the junior leaders program onto Susan and her husband James after Susan graduated from Capital University with her law degree in the late ‘90s.
“My husband and I are products of the 4-H program. We jokingly say we were a 4-H project that got out of hand like now we kissed; now we’re married 22 years,” Susan said.
Raised 37 fence posts apart, Susan and James had the same upbringing and the same 4-H experiences. They have 4-H in their blood; it helped them become leaders in their community, and that’s something they’d like to pass on to the next generation, including to their sons Jack McDonald and Eli McDonald and their bonus son Aaron McConnell.
Both John and Dorothy continued to help Susan and James with the junior leaders program until John passed away on Nov. 6, 2014, from head injuries sustained in a fall at home after a 4-H meeting at the fairgrounds. He had been a 4-H volunteer for 61 years — the same amount of time he and Dorothy had been married — when he died.
Eclipsing 70 years as a 4-H volunteer, Dorothy has seen as many as four generations of some families come through the junior leaders program. She’s mentored community leaders and those who reached even greater leadership positions.
“She’s a very important member of our community,” said Leah Schuhart a recent junior leaders aluma and the 2024 Ohio Fairs Queen. “She is very much loved and adored and recognized as someone who has made lasting contributions to Muskingum County. And, you know, we’re really grateful we’ve had her around, and just really excited for her to be getting this recognition that she so truly deserves.”
Following the grand opening of the 2024 Muskingum County Fair, Dorothy’s community celebrated her as its first 70-year 4-H volunteer during the 4-H awards ceremony on Aug. 11 in front of the grandstands. U.S. Congressman Troy Balderson (R-OH), a Muskingum County 4-H alum, presented Dorothy with a proclamation and glass award for her 70 years of service. The Muskingum County extension office also composed a scrapbook full of submitted photos and handwritten letters and raised over $10,000 in her name for the Muskingum County 4-H Endowment Fund.
“It was very humbling,” Dorothy said.
To this day, Dorothy still attends every junior leaders meeting; she has never missed a day of the Muskingum County Fair, and she has rarely missed an Ohio 4-H Conference, even in inclement weather.
“I hope I can carry her legacy,” Susan said.
Susan and James manage the family farm, Colonial Heights Farm, raising Black Baldies — a Black Angus-Hereford crossbreed — and operate their own agritourism attraction, McDonald’s Greenhouse and Corn Maze.
Passing the torch to the next generation, Dorothy is happy going to church and returning home to watch kids experience agriculture up close — sometimes for the first time — at her daughter and son-in-law’s petting zoo.
“I love those young people. They have so much potential,” Dorothy said.
