LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - She started as a hat check girl.
It was 1965, and, after eight years of marriage and three kids, Dee Tonniges was a divorced woman with mouths to feed.
She gathered coats and squared away porkpie hats and, at the end of her shift, she kept a few folded bills to pay the babysitter before the boss pocketed the rest.
A few months later, a waitress quit.
And the young mother thought: I’d like to do that, instead.
And she did.
She spent 25 years at the Legion Club serving T-bones to Bob Devaney and a host of Lincoln’s veterans and businessmen.
She spent 15 more at Spike and Ollie’s at 54th and O streets. “Oh, I loved it,” the 86-year-old told the Lincoln Journal Star.
When that restaurant closed, she headed over to Howard’s Pantry on 48th and Van Dorn and Howard hired her.
She’s still there three nights a week, but it’s The Eatery now, new owners in a revamped building.
She’s a hostess. Greeter. Mentor. Celebrity.
“She just made coming to dinner special,” says Janice Jillson, a diner who became a friend. “She’s just joyful.”
Joyful after more than 50 years on her feet.
She has neuropathy - her feet going numb at crazy times - a side effect of chemo for colon cancer.
Thursday, Dee is sitting at an Eatery table before the start of her shift.
Janice is here - “for moral support.” Dee wasn’t crazy about the idea of a story. I’m ordinary, she said. Boring.
Janice knew different.
So do Doug and Michelle Daize, who have owned the restaurant for more than seven years.
When they bought Howard’s, they offered jobs to staff, Dee included.
“She had regular customers who came to see her,” Michelle says. “A few of them boycotted the restaurant because they thought we fired her.”
Never.
“She has a job here as long as she wants one,” Doug says.
“She’s almost like an ambassador,” Michelle says. “She’s like royalty.”
Dee’s hearing isn’t so great, so she doesn’t catch every compliment.
But the restaurant life?
It suits Dee just fine.
“I had office jobs before. But it was just the same old people every day. I wanted some adventure.”
She found it.
The early years at the Legion Club kept her hopping. She knew what her regulars liked and how they liked it cooked.
She remembered what they drank, too, and brought the glasses around before they had their menus open.
Bands played on the weekend, and, on Saturday nights, the place would fill with Cornhuskers - fans, players, coaches.
Bob and Phyllis Devaney were regulars.
“I used to go over and tell him jokes,” she says. “He wanted them, because he made a lot of speeches.”
Dee had a personality perfect for waitressing.
Outgoing, easygoing, smart, funny.
“She was always a hard worker,” said Lancia Wight, Dee’s middle child. “And she had three kids to raise.”
Dee would make supper and feed Lancia and her brothers and head off to work, where she made 75 cents an hour, plus tips.
“She’d get home about 10 o’clock or so, and then she had to take the sitter home,” the daughter said.
Then she’d start all over again. Wednesday was her one and only day off.
“I worked at the Legion Club, too,” Lancia said. “I would see her work, and I would think ’Holy crap.’”
It’s been 15 years since her mom was diagnosed with cancer.
“She calls it the year of hell, but she only missed one day of work.”
Chemo in the morning. Nap. Off to the restaurant.
By that time, Dee didn’t have to work. Her kids were raised. She was a grandmother and saved for retirement. She’d put her sons through college, doted on her grandkids, stayed busy with her church and tending her yard.
“She’s not working for the money,” Lancia says. “She’s working to get out of the house.”
She drives across town every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
“It’s been amazing being able to work with DeLoris over the years,” says general manager Lonnie Jorgensen. “She’s a great part of our team. She’s just a blessing.”
And Janice picks her up every Tuesday, and they head out for lunch. Often, Dee brings a list of current events for the pair to discuss. She tells funny stories.
“I want to be Dee when I’m 86,” the friend says.
“Dee’s on the go,” Kurtis Bomar says. “She can’t wait to go to work, and she’s eager to meet the world.”
Kurtis and his business partner, Conrad Quijas, own the Stem Gallery, and they are fans of The Eatery and of Dee.
“We just admire her spunk and her drive,” he said. “And her sense of humor is endless. My advice to her is to keep on going, girl.”
Dee is listening.
She doesn’t have any plans to retire.
“What’s funny is she doesn’t think she’s old,” her daughter says. “She thinks her kids are old.”
Back at the house where she raised those three kids, we look through old photo albums. Dee over the years, changing hairstyles and uniforms and restaurants.
She has old menus. Lobster tail $3.50. Filet mignon $2.75.
An old pay stub from 1970: $25.
The tips got her through, she says, all of those dollar bills and quarters tucked into an old cloth purse she hid in the closet.
And the people she met - and keeps meeting - standing inside another Lincoln restaurant, her lipstick on just so, and so happy to see you.
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