“I recharge my batteries here.”
We’re sitting on the patio at Dawn Mankey’s deceptively old-style farmhouse tucked above the stream that splashes along Ross School Road on its way to Ten Mile Creek. Sunshine and shadow play across the patio tables, chairs and up the retaining wall where a wood-fired brick pizza oven is the star of the show. Plants are everywhere, rubbing elbows with concrete angels, statuesque pottery, wind chimes, hidden niches and cozy corners overlooking lawns that wander into the forest.
“I built the pizza oven because I love pizza parties,” Dawn cheerfully admits. “I was the oldest child, and I got to go to work on Saturday with my dad—he was a carpenter and did home remodeling.” In fact, she and husband Tim Mankey, who works for Penn Dot, and his dad Jake, a retired surveyor, designed and help build this two-story country home slash beauty shop slash community gathering place in 2000, the year after daughter Gina was born.
“We couldn’t find an old farmhouse, so we built this.” Long wall mining will soon come through “so we might only have a year and a half before we have to deal with subsidence. The foundation is poured, not like the old houses built with stone, so it will be bad. We’re doing what we can; it’s in our lawyer’s hands. So many of my friends and customers who come here are sad. They think of it as a retreat. They’ve written wonderful testimonials about it for me.”
Sitting here with my coffee cup and scone in hand, and taking in the living, cheerful, kinetic energy of this place, I feel like writing one of my own.
When I arrived for this first visit, Dawn informed me things these days are in a messy, wondrous flux—two new dogs, new cats, new plants and extra furniture tucked into every corner. Her son David is moving back to the area from Clearfield County, while preparing to deal with a new regime of treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia that arrived with Covid-19 in 2020. “Most people get it late in life. David is only 34, so his is a special case. He’s determined to fight it and get back to work. He’ll be moving into his new home in a few weeks, but until then…it will be pretty crazy around here!”
As if on cue, the kitchen door opens and eight-year-old grandson Mason, hair flying, joins the conversation long enough to grab blueberries off the plate of scones and agree to join grandma for a photo-op.
We’re deep into the time traveling that interviews are fueled by, bound by the common thread of what it is about Dawn that makes up her kaleidoscope of a life. She hits me with her 150-watt smile. “While we are on this earth, live with grace and truth.”
Dawn remembers the moment she figured this out. “I was done. I cried out for hours. And within hours the Sprit filled me.”
The rest is a crazy quilt of what happened next when living day to day in grace and truth. She found the right partner and married him in 1999: “Tim is my calm to the storm, my home base, my best friend. He supports whatever I do.”
And getting up at 4 a.m. helps. “That’s my spiritual time to decide how to ground myself. I don’t really plan my life. It just happens. I get phone calls!”
Dawn moved to Greene County from Newton Falls, Ohio when she was in 6th grade and, “I wasn’t happy to leave Ohio but once I got here…I learned carpentry from my dad Butch Cassidy. I’m always busy. I love figuring things out.”
She also had a knack for cutting hair, thanks to an aunt and cousins with beauty shops. “My mom let me use the razor comb when I was eight. I cut my brother’s ear, but it was a great haircut!”
That skill came in handy later when, as a single mother with two kids, she needed some kind of profession. While training for her license at the county Career & Technology Center in 1996, Dawn competed: “I took first in districts and third in state before I graduated.”
She got her chance to become a professional when a teacher recommended Dawn take over veteran hair stylist Jimmy Sacko of Washington’s clientele while he recuperated. “I met him and he told me, ‘Forget everything you learned in school and let me show you.’ He was an amazing mentor.” When he died eight months later, Dawn took over the business.
Cutting hair is another way that Dawn gives back to her community. “When United Way did Stuff the Bus last week, over 150 kids got a haircut. I don’t know how we did it with the four of us hairdressers. Next year I’m going to have to recruit more help!”
Dawn found her true calling—helping kids have fun while learning that others care for them—when she was helping a friend run for office in 2006. As she and son Cody canvassed neighborhoods in the coal patch town of Elizabeth, Fayette County, they saw houses were becoming incredibly dilapidated, and then “a dead playground, no swings, all that was left was the bars. There were kids playing there, and it broke my heart. So I called some friends and got extra seats and chains. Cody and I went back with weed-whackers and worked on that playground. The kids… you would have thought we’d given them the world.”
As a member of First Baptist Church, teaching Sunday School, spearheading the church’s community project Touch a Truck, being actively involved in The Way, the new community center under construction next door to the church parking lot, is a no-brainer for this mom.
“I never needed a babysitter—my kids came with me, serving meals, helping at Touch a Truck, whatever I was into. They all have a fantastic work ethic but I think they know how to pace themselves a little better than me! The Way is going to be a wonderful place for families to do things together and I can’t wait to see it finished.”
Dawn’s boundless energy to make fun happen includes helping friends. She helped Denny House owner Pam Marisa carry off the first annual Grinch and Santa there in 2022. “When I said I was ready to do an Easter Bunny event this spring, Pam said ‘I need a hot minute to get over the Grinch!’ We had the Easter Bunny and did face painting, crafts, adopt a stuffed bunny, oh and the 4-H kids brought live bunnies. We were all over the yard. The Bunny Hop Sack Race was open to all ages, and I won!”
When I return a few days later, I find Dawn recharging her batteries in the kitchen, surrounded by trays of perfect Roma tomatoes and stellar green peppers, busily making a humongous pot of spaghetti sauce. The secret ingredient? The right olive oil, of course! “My friend—she wouldn’t want her name mentioned, she’s very private—has an amazing garden. She grows it, I can it, and we split it!”
Dawn shows me her newest prized possession, a quilt made by another old friend, Marcia Bartlett, who stitched in T-shirts from eleven years of Touch a Truck. “I was so surprised!” We take the quilt outside and dangle it down the porch steps. Dawn points to a patch, beaming. “Here’s the first year.”
I’m back tomorrow at 10 a.m. to meet a very satisfied customer who drives from Canonsburg to have her hair color, and everything else, done just right.
When illness caused by cellulitis caused Dawn and Tim to move her business on E. Maiden St. Washington home to Sycamore and open Beauty and Amazing Grace in 2019, her loyal fan base followed.
“She’s just herself. Makes you feel comfortable, and the cut is perfect for me and the color; she does just what I need. No more, no less.”
Susan is in the chair, and the foils are out. She’s here for an-end-of-summer touch up to carry her through until her next appointment in October.
“Every time I complained about my hair being too dark or too light, my friend Robin would tell me ‘You need to see my Dawn.’ Then Chaleece, my next-door neighbor, got her hair colored, and I said ‘wow’!’ when she told me who did it. When I find somebody, I like I hold on to them.”
The foils get shaped and pinned under Dawn’s expert fingers. “It’s all about the cut and no strong lines. I use two colors. If you’re not satisfied, I’ll drive to your house at 8 in the morning to make it right!”
As if on cue, the sliding barn door to the rest of the house opens and Mason slips in, points to the bathroom and disappears, leaving Athena the pup sniffing at the door. David’s voice saying “Athena! Come here!” Dawn and Susan and me laughing.
Just another ‘you can’t make this stuff up!’ kind of day at Dawn Mankey’s recharging station.
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