Trailblazer Dorothy Teater shaped civic progress
With a 1954 master’s degree and a commitment to Columbus and family, this local politician served as a mentor and bold campaigner who elevated the whole community.
Dorothy Seath Teater ’54 MS was a political trailblazer, the first woman elected as a Franklin County commissioner and the first woman to run on a major political ticket for mayor of Columbus. “I never knew anyone who worked harder than my mother,” says Andy Teater ’86, a Hilliard City Council member. “She was prepared and informed, and her only agenda was working for the people she represented.”
Dorothy, 94, died July 29. “She was an important part of the transformation of Columbus from a ‘cowtown’ and provincial capital into a national city,” says Doug Preisse, a former Republican Party leader.
Born in Kansas, Dorothy earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kentucky, where she met her future husband, Bob Teater ’55 MS, ’57 PhD. The young couple moved to Columbus in 1953 to raise a family and pursue advanced degrees at Ohio State. After graduation, Dorothy served as a Franklin County Extension agent and worked in consumer affairs offices for Columbus and Bank One.
She ran for Columbus City Council in 1979 and won, receiving the most votes of any candidate. “As some of us [women] get into office, we can help others,” the Republican told The Columbus Dispatch soon after her election. She added she wanted to help other women “not because they’re women but because they’re good candidates.”
In 1984, Dorothy became the first woman elected Franklin County commissioner, and voters sent her back three more times. “Her big secret was she didn’t just read a paper about an issue; she went out in the community and talked to the people,” says Columbus political consultant Terry Casey ’72.
The Teaters became a Columbus power couple. Bob was associate dean of the Ohio State College of Agriculture and director of the School of Natural Resources (1969–75), director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (1975–83) and then served three terms on the Columbus Board of Education. He died in 2013.
“They were a dynamic duo,” Casey says. “They fed off each other and made each other better and the community better.”
When Bob Taft first ran for governor in 1988, he selected Dorothy as his lieutenant governor running mate. Taft dropped out of the race before the primary, ran again in 1998 and was elected to the first of two terms with a different running mate. Dorothy ran for mayor in the 1999 election against Michael B. Coleman ’10 HON, the eventual winner and first African American to lead Columbus. Teater received the Distinguished Service Award from Ohio State in 1998 for her support of community outreach programs in the city.
The Teaters had four sons: David, James ’78, Donald ’85 MD and Andy. “She always said she was proudest of the
fact that her boys got along so well with each other, and we still do,” Andy says. “She loved being a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.” Three of their grandchildren also are alumni.
The family lived in a large Victorian home in Clintonville that they bought in 1965 and lovingly restored. “My earliest memories are of my mother, wearing rubber gloves, stripping off all the paint that had been painted over all the beautiful woodwork throughout the house,” Andy says.
Growing up, he was a part of his mother’s many campaigns. “She’d get on a COTA bus on High Street, talk to everyone on the bus and then get off that bus and onto the next bus, during rush hour,” he says. “She was actually a bit of an introvert, but she knew how to campaign, and she knew how to connect with people.”
