Deborah “Debbie Dee” Real, a manager for the Boots Court motel in Carthage, Missouri, during a key time in its revival, has died. She was 73.
Real regularly greeted overnight visitors in the Route 66 motel’s front office when Deb Harvey and her sister, Priscilla Bledsaw, owned it.
The sisters oversaw improvements to the motel, from removing the gabled roof in favor of the original flat roof, restoring its architectural neon lighting and refabricating the main neon sign — and its name — back to the original Boots Court. (The establishment for decades had been known as the Boots Motel.)
Not to be overlooked, Debbie Dee’s hospitality and knowledge added good vibes for those who stayed at the motel. Her nickname kept popping up — in a good way — in numerous online guest reviews and stories.
Harvey and Bledsaw owned the Boots Court for about 10 years, turning it over to the locally-based Boots Court Foundation in 2021. The sisters — along with Dee — were great caretakers of the once-declining property when it desperately needed it.
The foundation has continued to improve the motel, including opening a visitors center at a former gas station next door.
The Boots Court was built in 1939 by Arthur Boots at U.S. 66 and 71, colloquially named “The Crossroads of America.”
In one of the motel’s biggest claims to fame, movie star Clark Gable stayed in Room No. 6 several times during cross-country trips from his native Ohio.
The Boots was renamed the Boots Motel during the 1950s before reverting to its original moniker.
According to her obituary, a celebration of life for Real was held Saturday for Real in her hometown of Quincy, Illinois. A daughter and a grandson survive her.
(Image of the Boots Court in Carthage, Missouri, by Jeff Kays via Flickr)