When planning a visit to the home of Union County native Dollie Beeler Merritt, a smart person would arrive at mealtime.

Well known in the area for her chicken and dumplings, along with many other country foods, Merritt says her mother started her in the kitchen at only five years old.

“I would beg her to let me do dishes,” said Merritt. “She’d pull a stool over to the sink and I would climb up and help.”

At nine years old Merritt started cooking entire meals of cornbread, beans and potatoes. Cooking breakfast soon followed. By the time she was thirteen, Merritt was handling most of the meal prep for her family that included five siblings.

When her mom became ill, Merritt left high school for a while to take over running the household. Merritt grew up in a hardworking family that she helped support by working hard herself. Her father was a licensed master barber and often worked a full day only to come home and cut hair in his basement.

“I was up every morning at six getting breakfast for my dad and siblings, then I would do the housework. I washed and ironed all of my dad’s barber coats every week.”

Soon after her marriage to Paul Merritt, she decided to learn how to make his favorite food, chicken and dumplings.

“My sister-in-law, Wanda, taught me how to make the dish,” said Merritt. “I made them for the folks in my church and it took off from there.”

Before long word got around that Dollie Merritt’s chicken and dumplings were the best in the county. She made them as a fundraiser at Falling Waters for nineteen years, giving the proceeds back to the cause.

Phone calls from residents asking for help with other fundraising soon followed. Merritt has cooked the dish for hundreds of people at a time, including ball clubs and schools. One of the largest fundraisers she organized required one hundred pounds of flour and forty stewing hens. It would be safe to say that thousands of people have enjoyed her signature recipe.

To this day, she helps prepare the drive-through Thanksgiving dinner at her home church where hundreds of people come every year to pick up a meal. She has even prepared her famous chicken and dumplings on a local television news segment at six in the morning.

“It didn’t matter that it was so early,” she said. “All of the people in the studio ate them (chicken and dumplings) anyway.”

As a young bride, Merritt took an interest in preserving food. She learned the process from June and Wanda Merritt and continued preserving food for her family until a couple of years ago. Surprisingly, Merritt says her favorite food is not chicken and dumplings but Sherry Railey’s meatloaf.

Enough about food. Here, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

Dollie Merritt has lived her life always looking for a way to help others. She didn’t do it for recognition. She did it because there was a need and because she was often asked for her help. She has spent her life working, both inside and outside the home.

Merritt has held jobs ranging from dump truck driver, to seamstress, to unlicensed midwife and many things in between. Merritt says her only regret is that she did not go to college and study to become a Gynecologist/Obstetrician.

“I gave birth to six children at home with not so much as an aspirin,” she said. “It just came natural to help other women who wanted to give birth at home. Of course, it was a different time then.”
A mission-minded individual, she often went with her husband on church building projects to other states. A joyful person by nature, Merritt says she still lives with one main motive.
“I love people and want to help them,” she said. “I look for the good in those who may have had a hard time. If I can’t help them I sure don’t want to hurt them.”

She has been a member of Mountain View Church of God since she was a child. She often puts her alto voice to use singing in the church and with her family at other events.
Merritt says she still lives a wild life. One that revolves around taking care of others, including ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She often spends vacations with her family. Despite her giving nature, Merritt says she wishes she had been a better mother and is thankful for her wonderful family.

“I am also thankful for my good health. I hope when people talk about me they say I am a happy, caring, Christian woman who loves the Lord, my family, my church family, my HMHS classmates, and my precious neighbors. A person who has lived through some rough times but never lost her joy. Someone who is always helping those in need.”
A service Merritt plans to continue for the remainder of her life.