In 1993, I moved to Capitol Hill and rented an English basement on Seward Square. In those days, the only supermarket was the Safeway on 14th Street. Not owning a car made such a trek almost a Himalayan journey. Eastern Market quickly became my preferred fresh food destination.
There on a fateful Saturday, I discovered Dan Donahue’s farm stand. It was a cornucopia of Amish produce, baked goods, peanut butter, lemonade, fresh ciders and, of course, conversation.
“Well, I have a compatible insanity approach to life and a neighborly kind of thing. If you don’t know your neighbor, who do you know? You have to develop a and part of the is trying to make an enjoyable experience at the Market,” said Donahue in his June 8, 2009 interview with the Ruth Anne Overbeck Project, Capitol Hill’s oral history project. Many Capitol Hill residents will recall Donahue’s wry sense of humor, terrible jokes and devotion to canines of all sizes and shapes.
Donahue was a fireplug of a man. Hair always trimmed to a bowl, a drooping mustache that could have graced a walrus, a cigarette between his teeth, John Lennon sunglasses, he held court on the corner of C and Seventh Streets chatting away in a gruff, deep voice, always with a twinkle in his eye.
A decorated Vietnam veteran, successful entrepreneur, humanitarian and Eastern Market raconteur, Daniel Stephen Thomas Donahue ed away on Dec. 12, 2024. This is his story.
Decorated Vietnam Veteran
Donahue was born on April 29, 1947 in Methuen, MA. He grew up in Texas and Massachusetts. He ed the Navy on July 30, 1964 and was initially trained as a dental technician. In 1967, he graduated from the Navy’s Field Medical School. Run by the Marine Corps., the school trains sailors both for service in Navy or Marine medical facilities and as field corpsmen. After graduation, he was shipped off to Vietnam.
Corpsman Donahue ed the Third Marine Infantry Division in spring of 1967. The unit was posted just south of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. Between 1967 and 1968, the Third Division suffered over 1,400 killed and over 9,000 wounded. The unit played a central role in the 1968 Tet Offensive protecting naval traffic along the Cua Viet River.
Donahue was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. The former medal is given to soldiers wounded or killed as a result of enemy fire while serving in a conflict. The latter is awarded for heroic achievement or service in a combat zone. In addition, Donahue received a Fleet Marine Force Combat Insignia, a Vietnam Combat Medal and a National Defense Service Medal. He rose to the rank of Petty Officer and was honorably discharged on Nov. 29, 1968.
Having briefly been stationed at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, Donahue returned to the area after his discharge. “I decided to come back to Washington, because it was a sleepy little town,” he said his Overbeck interview.
Entrepreneur
In 1969, Donahue and three friends rented a three story rowhouse on 13th Street near Lincoln Park from a senator. The house was “dark and spooky most of the time,” Donahue recalled. The friends referred to it as the “Transylvania Hotel.”
Donahue found employment at a downtown patent law firm. Later he moved to his own place on Sixth Street NE near East Capitol. The house featured a huge garden, where he grew vegetables. His love for gardening led to a career in landscaping, including a stint as a horticulture instructor in Baltimore, MD. Donahue managed the Catholic University grounds and then worked for an international construction firm. Later, he founded Blossoms Lawn & Garden Care, a well-regarded Capitol Hill landscaping company.
Donahue’s interest in plants led to hip in the Capitol Hill Garden Club. The club raised money through the sale of tulip bulbs at Eastern Market. In his 2009 interview, Donahue recalled:
“We were selling tulip bulbs for the Garden Club. And we would get there at six o’clock in the morning. And there was only four of us who were crazy enough to get up at that particular time of the day and go down there and sell tulip bulbs at the Market. We did that until about ten o’clock in the morning when normal people would get up and come to the Market.
“We had a wonderful time…That’s how I got hooked on the Market…,” Donahue told his Overbeck interviewer.
One day in 1989, Donahue found himself at the Southwest Post Office. Looking up, he noticed the building across the street had a drive-up, rooftop parking lot. He negotiated a lease for the space and installed four greenhouses. For the next five years, Donahue raised imported bulbs from Holland, herbs and flowers there. He sold the plants at Eastern Market and at other farmers markets in the area.
At Eastern Market, Donahue ran into a Pennsylvania property owner who asked if he was interested in selling vegetables. They reached an agreement for Donahue to farm the land and for the next three years, he sold the vegetables at Eastern Market.
The Pennsylvania property was smack in the middle of Pennsylvania Dutch country.
“When we have a crop failure, they’d (the Amish) come and laugh at us and show us what we were doing wrong. So finally we struck up a deal that I wouldn’t grow any more if they wouldn’t drive. And we started bringing their things in. And pretty soon—the quality was excellent and much better than what we could do—and then they had relatives of course who would say, “Well why don’t you bring some this stuff in?” Well, the next thing you know we’re talking about 84 different [Amish] families over a 10-year period of time—we developed into that.”
Out of these ad hoc agreements, Donahue created local import business he named Agora Farms. Each week he transported vegetables, eggs, cheese, peanut baked goods and sundries from a network of local Amish farms stretching from the Pennsylvania-Maryland border from Lancaster to Duncannon in Perry County. He expanded his sales to more than nine markets in the DMV. By 2007, Donahue had perhaps the largest outdoor stand at Eastern Market.
Donahue’s relationship with the Amish was rich and multifaceted. After the tragic school house shooting in 2006, he raised money for the families by selling horse shoes at his stalls. He paid the farmers two dollars apiece for the shoes and sold them for $5. Then, he gave the farmers that money as well.
The tragic Eastern Market fire of 2007 threw a wrench into Donahue’s business. The subsequent closure of the street and closure of the market for renovation significantly eroded Agora’s business, he told his Overbeck interviewer. He stopped doing business there entirely for a year, returning after the Market reopened in March of 2009. Ultimately, Agora relocated to the C Street side of the building across from the entrance to the Pottery Studio, where it remained until Donahue’s last day in business on Dec. 30, 2023.
Humanitarian
One of the issues in importing food into a city is the uncertainty of demand. If customers are uninterested or scarce, Donahue risked ending the day with a truckload of unsold perishables. His solution was to donate the unsold vegetables to local shelters and food kitchens.
For ten years, Donahue donated his excess to the Capitol Hill United Methodist Church. Volunteers from the congregation’s Our Daily Bread Breakfast Program would meet him at the close of business every Sunday to pick up a variety of fresh foods ranging from yogurt, cheese and nuts to kale, green beans, sweet potatoes and fruit. He even gave away popcorn. Donahue deliberately bought extra produce to ensure a remainder and kept a donation container for the program right next the cash at his stand.
And of course, there was the turtle.
Raconteur
Donahue loved dogs. For years, he was accompanied on his rural ramblings by an Australian Cattle dog named Garlic. Garlic copiloted his journeys perched on the front enger seat of his truck. She guarded him during his daily afternoon siestas, poking her head out of the windows of the truck’s cab. She served as official greeter at his stand.
One day, Donahue was draining a cooler in the back of his truck. Water was dripping down off the tailgate. A nearby dog escaped his owner and started licking the water. “Hold on a second,” said Donahue, who quickly filled container to satisfy the thirsting pooch. Placed right beside the sign on which prices were posted, the dog dish became a feature of Donahue’s stand. My dog always made a beeline for it as soon as we crossed C Street SE.
Donahue got sick of filling the dish. So, he replaced it with a larger one. And, then he arrived at the ultimate solution: a stack of three 24 inch deep plant saucers. “I had one dog that would come in and put his whole “snoot” into the bottom of the dish and the water would be up to his ears, and that’s how he drank,” recalled Donahue in his Overbeck interview.
Unfortunately, shoppers often did not notice the dish, knocking it over in their hurried shopping. So, Donahue went out and bought a big rubber turtle and placed in the dish. Tourists, he recalled, even tried to feed it. Then on one particularly busy day, according to Donahue, two officers from the Human Society pulled up in a truck. Flashing their badges, they told Donahue that there had been a complaint about the turtle being kept in the sun. The two threatened to issue him a citation for cruelty if he did not immediately put the turtle inside the tent.
Donahue decided to have some fun with the officers. He picked up the turtle and hurled it over the officers’ heads into the tent. It landed with an audible bump and flipped over on its back. Aghast, the officers ran over only to discover to their embarrassment that it was rubber turtle.
A month or so later, someone stole the turtle. The neighborhood was up in arms. Two women organized a vigilante group to find the thief. In our pre-digital days, the Hill Rag did a story on the turtle-napping. Donahue tried unsuccessfully to find a replacement. After the story, a neighbor donated a three-foot Godzilla to the stand.
In retrospect, Donahue’s life was much like a turtle’s. Most knew him as the extroverted raconteur who vended fine Amish produce and dispensed opinions on the corner of C and Seventh Streets on weekends. In a sense that was his shell. Yet, beneath that commercial and social façade lived a complex individual who served his country with honor, built a successful business that connected the Hill with far flung Amish communities and cared for the least among us. And, much like the purloined turtle, there will never be a replacement.
Readers can learn more about Donahue from his extensive interview with the Overbeck Oral History Project at www.capitolhillhistory.org/interviews/dan-donahue.
Please consider honoring Dan by adding a memory to his online tribute book: www.tributebook.com/domains/245385f1-bcd2-464e-98d3-645fd17dff30/obituaries/34143432/book?utm_source=www.goinghomecares.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=obit_event_view_book
