Each year, the Brown County Democrat celebrates some aspect of Brown County history in our Founders Day section. This year we’re writing about residents who are about 80 or older, who have incredible stories to share and who define “Brown County character” in some way or another. If you have a suggestion for a person to feature in the next Founders Day issue, send it to [email protected] or call us at 812-988-2221.
Kay Dowell is a little reluctant to talk about her own life at first. She thinks the life of her father, George C. Tucker, is more interesting.
But not many Brown County residents can say that Debbie Reynolds picked them up from an airport in Los Angeles to hang out with Eddie Fisher in a television studio. Reynolds was pregnant with actress Carrie Fisher at the time.
After graduating from Nashville High School in 1954, Dowell moved to Kansas City to take a six-week business court course while trying to get a job as a flight attendant.
She worked for AT&T for six months as a secretary before being called by American Airlines. She lived in Chicago while attending flight attendant school; then she was based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]She would work about seven plane trips a month, since traveling by air took a bit longer in the 1950s before the creation of jet planes.
Her job took her all over the country, from New York City where she watched the ball drop on New Year’s Eve in Times Square — “Some kid came up and grabbed me when the ball was dropping. He kissed me and just took off,” she said — to Los Angeles, where she mingled with Hollywood celebrities.
“When we would get to LA, the limos would pick us up, take us to Long Beach and we’d have all evening,” Dowell said.
“(We would) go the next morning. They would pick us up. It was glamorous back then.”
At that time, Big Band leader Lawrence Welk had the Aragon Ballroom in Santa Monica, California. Dowell and one of her flight attendant friends were asked to go dancing there by the pilots in between flights.
“When you went into this Aragon Ballroom, the music, it’s like a big barn, it was out over the ocean and you’d just waltz all the way around.”
Dowell ran across many celebrities on her flights. She met Fisher with her friend. “We flew together. He said, ‘Girls, next time you come out to LA, call me and we’ll come and get you, take you to the studio,’ because he was on TV. So, we did,” Dowell said.
Other famous celebrities she had the chance to mingle with included actor Michael O’Shea and singer Patti Page.
“It was fun. There were some days I’d fly to Chicago. Then sometimes we’d go to all places. Every time we’d go to New York or Washington, D.C., we’d do different things,” she said.
“I had a good time.”
Growing up in downtown Nashville, Dowell’s neighbors had been famous, too, but for a different reason. They were artists who’d eventually be known as Brown County’s masters.
Dowell grew up in the building where the Holly Shop is now. “Around the corner where the library is, is where they all lived,” she said.
“Alberta (Shulz) would let us come in and she’d play the piano. Adolph (Shulz), we were really kind of scared of him. He’d let us in his studio, but we were little and he was tall, never smiled,” Dowell said.
“L.O. Griffith, he would let us come in. He was a little, short man. He had a big thing of paper, this big tablet. He’d sketch for us.”
One of the many paintings her father handed down to her hangs in her living room. Tucker and his brother-in-law, Bob Gregg, formed Gregg & Tucker. One of their many ventures included a car lot where artists would barter with the men to pay for cars with their paintings.
“Uncle Bob had a stack of paintings. My dad had a stack of paintings,” Dowell said.
The Tucker family
Her father’s life story is no less impressive or interesting than hers, though.
At the age of 13, Tucker dropped out of school to help his older brother take care of the family farm in Johnson County after the death of their father.
In about four years, the brothers were able to get the farm out of debt.
George and Mildred Tucker were married in 1931 and they moved to California. That’s where Dowell’s sister, Dee Percifield, was born in 1933.
After two years in California, the Tuckers moved back to Brown County in 1933. They rented a cabin on Town Hill Road from local artist C. Carey Cloud before moving to Jackson Branch Road.
Kay was born in 1936. The family moved to Nashville after her father built the home where the Holly Shop is now.
“They owned that block,” Dowell said of her father and uncle.
They owned a building where the parking lot at Van Buren and Gould streets is now.
“They had Greg and Tucker Hardware and Filling Station there, where Sunshine Pizza used to be. The historical (society) building, where that is, they owned that because that is where they put all of their lumber. They owned where the (County Office Building) annex is, that property. They owned where the library is and they owned the house next to the library,” Dowell said.
“My dad furnished all of the wood for Camp Atterbury. It was in the 1940s. … He had to go to Georgia to get it,” she said.
“My dad was interesting. It might make my story interesting.”
After George Tucker retired, he bought a property that had an old filling station on it.
“He had an antique shop there and oriental rugs,” Dowell said. The building would later house the Gypsy Pot shop.
Kay and her sister rebuilt the building in 1979 and named it the George C. Tucker building.
George Tucker also built the building next door. “When my husband and I first got married we stayed up there. There were seven apartments,” she said.
George Tucker had been drafted into the Navy at 35. He served from 1944 to 1945. Gregg was not drafted since the two were partners and he had to take care of the business.
“They called him on the ship, ‘Pop,’ because he was 35. The kids were like 18 to 21,” Dowell said.
“One of the things they had to do was when the ships were blown up, they had to go and pick up the men. One of the men they picked up was his brother-in-law … Uncle Tom. He was in the water. … He could never explain the feeling.”
While George Tucker was away, Mildred kept the household running.
“My mother was good, old-fashioned. She made everything we wore because we couldn’t afford anything else. She cooked the meals, she cleaned house and she brought us up in church. That was the main thing with my mom,” Dowell said.
“She was the organ player. She was our spiritual lady.”
‘We had fun’
After two years of seeing the country as a flight attendant, Dowell came back to Brown County.
That’s when she saw Paul “Chili” Dowell again. They had dated in high school — she was a cheerleader and he was a basketball player — but broke up when Kay moved away.
Their graduating class from Nashville High School was 26 students. The school stood where the Artist Colony Inn stands now.
“When I came back, I saw him. We talked it over. I decided I really wanted to get married, and he did too,” she said.
“It’s just like, ‘Hey, it was time.’”
Paul was nicknamed “Chili” because his mother worked at the Gables restaurant in town and he would go every day to get a bowl of chili. Owner Joe Crabtree would see Paul Dowell coming toward the restaurant and would say, ‘Here comes Chili Billy.’
“Everybody started calling him Chili … It stuck. Brown County, you know,” she said.
The couple was married in 1957. Their first child, David, was born in 1959 while they were living in California. Chili passed away in 2005 after a battle with cancer.
“No marriage is perfect, but we had a good marriage. We had fun,” she said.
Chili worked at Cummins in Columbus, while Kay worked in a restaurant.
Her cousin ended up inviting them to move to California with them. An apartment next door to them had opened up, and Chili could work delivering milk to homes there.
“We laughed about it, and one day we said, ‘You know what? Let’s go for a couple of years.’ My husband said, ‘OK.’ We packed up and we went to California. We stayed for two years,” she said.
Chili delivered milk all over Santa Ana, California, including to the home of Andy Devine, a famous Western actor.
The job required him to take the glass jars of milk inside and put them in the refrigerators.
“He said he would go in and these women would come out in their nightgowns. I said, ‘Honey, I don’t know if I want you to be doing this or not,’” Dowell said with a chuckle.
Despite not having a lot of money, the couple managed to have fun while living in California.
“I can remember him being paid every two weeks and sometimes having $6 left over, but we had groceries and gas. We could pack our lunch and go to the beach or go to Bear Mountain,” she said.
“We were young and we thought it was fun.”
While they were in California, Jim Owens, Chili’s brother-in-law, called to say they could buy the bowling alley where Quaff ON! Brewing Company is now. They also bought the motel next door. The Dowell family stayed in an apartment that was connected to the motel.
The families ran the bowling alley and motel for six years.
“In six years, we realized it wasn’t going to support two families. We weren’t in debt, so we got out of that and my husband went to work for Coca-Cola in Columbus,” Dowell said.
Chili retired from Coca-Cola after 35 years as a plant manager. His boss didn’t like to fly, which meant the couple did even more traveling to conventions, including celebrations for Coca-Cola’s 75th and 100th anniversaries.
“Before I was out of high school I had been to every state in the United States. My dad’s family, a lot of his family, was out in California. Every other three years, we would go,” she said.
“I loved it. Alaska and Hawaii weren’t in the United States yet. I’ve been to Hawaii. We had the tickets to go to Alaska when they discovered my husband had cancer, so we had to cancel that … but we couldn’t complain.”
Her father passed away in 1973. Her third daughter, Mitzi, was born in 1971.
The George C. Tucker Building, which is now owned by Big Woods Brewing Company and houses Big Woods Pizza Co., used to house 11 different shops, including Percifield’s shop, Granny’s Christmas and Gift Shop. Dowell bought the shop from Percifield when she moved to Florida and the siblings divided up properties.
Dowell ran the Christmas shop for 25 years.
About six years after her husband passed away, Big Woods co-owners Ed Ryan and Jeff McCabe came to visit her.
“They said, ‘Hey, we want to buy the building. Would you sell it?’ I’m thinking, ‘Lord, I’m not ready yet.’ But I said, ‘Yeah.’ I told them what I wanted. They came back and said they would take it. I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
After selling, Dowell stayed for three years running the Christmas shop. After she left, Big Woods Pizza expanded to the shop area upstairs.
Dowell is officially retired now and is having fun playing with her grandchildren. She has 10. Twice a week she volunteers with Mary Kilgore at God’s Grace. Other days, she’s babysitting her littlest family members.
She said her family has kept her in Brown County.
“And I love it. I love it here. The peace … I’ve been to New York, you go to California where I lived. I’ve lived in Tulsa. I’ve lived in Chicago. I’ve lived in Florida. … Boy, I’m glad to be here in peace,” she said.
“This is home.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”Kay Dowell” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Age: 82
Place of birth: Columbus Hospital on March 26, 1936
Spouse: Paul “Chili” Dowell
Children: Dana, David and Mitzi
Parents: George and Mildred Tucker
Siblings: Dee Percifield, who owned Abe Martin Reality
Occupations: Flight attendant, owner of Christmas Shop for 25 years in the George C. Tucker Building
Hobbies: Playing with grandchildren, reading.
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