Ohio restaurant pays tribute to customer who died in tornado by memorializing his favorite table
The workers at a restaurant in Celina, Ohio, have dedicated one of their tables to a beloved customer who was tragically killed on Monday when a powerful tornado propelled a car through his home.
Melvin "Sweet Dale" Hanna was always the first customer of the day at Bob Evans, a neighborhood establishment where he’d have the same breakfast every morning, two of his servers told WBNS.
"He was here every morning at 7 o’clock," said Marsha Houston. “He was waiting in the parking lot for us every day to unlock the doors.”
“Every time that he walked into door, he had big grin on face, always smiling patiently and waiting,” server and cook Jenna, who declined to provide her last name, told Yahoo Lifestyle. “He was a fixture.”
Houston and her colleague Elena Beougher say they didn’t even have to ask Hanna for his order because they had memorized it: Country Biscuit Breakfast, eggs over hard, with home fries, plus coffee with creamer and a water.
Hanna had visited Bob Evans for the last time on Monday morning; that night, as Dale was sleeping in bed, tragedy struck. A tornado with wind speeds up to 165 miles per hour touched down on Celina; it was one of several tornadoes to ravage Ohio — and one of about 300 to sweep through the nation in the past few weeks.
The tornado — which one Celina resident described as “a freight train” — caused a car to rip through Hanna’s bedroom and strike the bed he was sleeping in. His daughter, Diana, was almost speechless when asked to describe the devastating condition of Hanna’s house when they discovered him.
"The pictures don’t show it," Diana told the news station. "I mean, there’s just no, I mean, the house is, it’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable.”
“We’re still trying to wrap our minds around the loss,” said Hanna’s other daughter, Debra.
Hanna is remembered not only as a ray of sunshine in his neighborhood and a valued friend, but also as a construction worker who built several churches in his community and a devoted husband who treasured the memory of his late wife.
“He was a man that enjoyed life until he lost my mom,” said Debra. “And once mama was gone, Daddy was ready to go."
Jenna said her favorite customer was always happy, but “really the only sad thing was that he kept missing his wife. We filled that void in his life. We were like his family.”
Those who loved Hanna were understandably in shock when they learned of Hanna’s fate. Jenna said that even though she’d heard the news, “I came in the next day and kept looking at the table expecting him to be there.”
So the restaurant employees decided to memorialize Hanna’s table by placing a coffee on it the next morning along with a sign that reads, “In Loving Memory of Dale.” They said his nickname was already Dale, but they added a little sugar on top.
“He was the sweetest man you could ever meet,” they said to WBNS. “We called him ‘Sweet Dale.’ Yeah, Sweet Dale. He always had a smile, even if he didn’t feel well. Just everyone, everyone loved Dale."
“I will never walk by this table and not think of him,” they added.
Hanna’s daughters, who are in town to arrange his funeral, take comfort in the idea that he’s now reunited with their mother. Diana told the news station, “I think mom is saying, 'Dale, the pearly gates need adjustment and so, get your level out, it’s time to get to work.’”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Family says son is a 'hero' after he digs them out of tornado debris
12-year-old boy ushers uncle to safety during devastating Alabama tornadoes
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