Dennard Quillen: Rehoboth born and raised
Dennard Quillen is among the last of a vanishing breed.
The 88-year-old is a Rehoboth Beach native, born and raised.
Born Jan. 27, 1928, Quillen graduated from the long-gone Rehoboth High School in a class of 15 people. He recalls a time when everyone in Rehoboth knew each other, when Route 1 was merely a two-lane road, and the only route from Dewey Beach to Bethany Beach was a dirt road.
“It was peaceful and quiet,” he said.
He has watched Rehoboth’s transformation from quiet town to year-round resort. Of that change, Quillen said, “I’m not thrilled at all. But it was inevitable.”
When Quillen grew up, A&P and Acme grocery stores stood on Rehoboth Avenue.
“The clerk would physically get the items off the shelf, put it into a paper bag and take a pencil and write it all down. Didn’t have a calculator. Did it all by hand. People were used to being waited on,” he said.
Quillen personally witnessed some of Rehoboth's most memorable moments.
During World War II, Quillen recalls being in a car, with Charlotte, whom he has known since first grade and been together with for 71 years, married for 64.
“We were kissing. We called it necking in those days. All the sudden, lights came on, and I heard engines running, landing barges landing, tanks came off, trucks came off, soldiers came off with weapons, and I reached to start the car and the starter locked. I grabbed my wife, and we ran up the Boardwalk. Never stopped till we got to Dolle’s, expecting to be shot any minute. We thought it was the Germans landing. Scared the hell out of us. We could see ships burning in the night sometimes. It was very scary,” Quillen said. The event turned out to be a training exercise.
He also lived through the famous Storm of ’62.
“That was three days and nights of hell,” Quillen said. “There was a house in Dewey Beach my father had built for Felix DuPont and he’d sold it. We were able to save the house. We worked three days and three nights on it. Unbelievable, it really was. I remember during the storm, walking down Route 1 in Dewey Beach up to my waist in water carrying people on my back getting them out of their homes.”
The Quillen family has long been a fixture in the local construction business; Dennard, his father and grandfather were all builders. Quillen has never really retired from work; he still goes into the office two or three days a week and still dresses in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans.
Quillen’s best-known business in Rehoboth is the hardware store that bears his name. He founded Quillen’s Hardware with Charlotte; they first built the store at 310 Rehoboth Ave. by themselves, starting with just 4,000 square feet and gradually expanding to 20,000 square feet.
“There wasn’t a real hardware store in town,” Quillen said. “We just felt there was a need for a full-fledged hardware store.”
The couple shut down the Rehoboth Avenue store after Charlotte survived two bouts with cancer, but they still own the building, which they rent to The Cultured Pearl restaurant.
“Best thing we ever did,” Quillen said. He praised Cultured Pearl owner Susan Wood’s renovation of the building into what it is now.
“She’s a dynamic person. She really is,” Quillen said.
The Quillens still operate a hardware store on Service Road outside Rehoboth, but on a smaller scale. Quillen and Charlotte have each had their health issues; Dennard had a stroke several years ago, and Charlotte now uses a wheelchair. Quillen said his lighter work schedule allows him to help care for his wife.
Quillen left Rehoboth only a few times, once to attend the now-gone Brown Vocational School in Wilmington, where he studied drafting, estimating and business law, and when he was drafted to the U.S. Army in 1950. Quillen did not serve overseas; he was stationed in Alabama with a construction battalion, where he helped train soldiers who were heading over to fight in the Korean War.
“I actually liked the Army. I almost decided to make it my career. I liked the challenge. My father was hurt in an accident, and he needed me, so when my two years were up I came back to civilian life,” he said.
Still, Quillen attained the rank of sergeant. He said he came close to going to the Korean War, and would cross paths with soldiers who had done multiple tours.
“Some of the people that we had coming into our outfit had come from Korea, and they wanted to go back there. I thought, ‘It can’t be too bad,’” Quillen said.
Back in civilian life, Quillen became a construction foreman with his father, where they worked on commercial and residential projects in the Delmarva region. Their most notable project was the original Rehoboth Bandstand, since updated.
A reserved man, Quillen does have a softer side, particularly when it comes to his Cocker Spaniel, Buff, a dog he rescued after Buff was thrown out of a moving car. Quillen’s last four dogs have been Cocker Spaniels. When asked why he sticks with the breed, he said, “I just like them.”
