Shirley Trueman, who greeted customers with songs and dance at the world-famous Bagdad Cafe on Route 66 in Newberry, Calif., for a decade, died Friday of cancer, reports the Desert Dispatch of nearby Barstow.
She died just a few days after the Dispatch reported that the restaurant and townsfolk were trying to raise money to fly the dying woman to see her children in Missouri for a final time.
Trueman was too ill to fly to the Show-Me State. But there a somewhat happy ending occurred anyway. About $2,500 was raised, and the family used the money to drive through the night to California and be with Trueman before she died.
“It was freaking awesome. That little-itty town,” Totten said. “Newberry Springs and Barstow, and all those people around there, they know who they are. We couldn’t have done it without them.”
Pruett said donations, large and small came from all over. One resident in Newberry Springs sent her children to a local truck stop with buckets plastered with the newspaper article about Trueman and asked for donations. Totten said it meant a lot to her and her children to see Trueman one more time. She hardly left Trueman’s side during the whole visit.
Money left over from the donations will be used to cover Trueman’s funeral and cremation.