Nona Dorough visits with customers at her cafe on Highway 21 in Uhland. Dorough is hoping to sell the cafe to pay for her daughter’s treatment for a muscular disease. (Photo by Wes Ferguson)
by WES FERGUSON
UHLAND — When Nona Dorough opened the only restaurant in Uhland a year and a half ago, she was counting on her daughter to help her do it.
They figured Dorough would run the cafe during breakfast and lunch. Her daughter, Felicia Puckett, would handle things in the evenings. It would be easier for her than a full-time job.
At the time, Dorough said, her daughter was able to walk around and was doing a little better. “We knew she was sick, but we thought she could do it.”
But Puckett’s health continued to deteriorate, and she was not able to help run the operation. Now a sign in front of Nona’s Cafe on Highway 21 announces the restaurant is for sale. Dorough, 58, is trying to sell the cafe to raise money for her daughter’s medicine.
Puckett, 38, has a neuromuscular disease similar to muscular dystrophy.
“All your muscles quit. It’s a very deadly disease,” Dorough said. “You can’t use your legs and hands. Your throat closes up without the medicine.”
Signs of the disease had first shown themselves around six years earlier. It had begun with little troubles – a shaking hand, a twitch in her left eye.
“It was not very noticeable, but it kept progressing,” Dorough said.
Puckett has an 11-year-old son. In August, she married a rancher she’d met at a cowboy church, and the family now lives in Stephenville. Dorough is glad her daughter has found someone who loves her and can take care of her.
“She’s very independent,” Dorough said. “You don’t expect your mother to be healthier than you. But I tell her whatever God puts on you, you gotta bear your burden.”
Dorough has no plans to shut down the cafe, which is known for its Tex-Mex, hamburgers and homemade chicken-fried steaks. She says she’ll be ringing up tickets at the counter until someone else buys the place from her. But does it turn a profit?
“It pays for itself,” she said. “It doesn’t make a whole lot, but it does pay for itself. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it.”
Dorough, 58, grew up in Oklahoma and now lives in Lockhart. She taught math and science in Waco-area schools for 23 years.
During the lunch rush on a recent Friday, she delivered a rapid fire of instructions to her waitresses, interspersed with gossip with her customers.
She has a thick Okie accent and talks as fast as two banjos. Here are snippets of Dorough’s riffs to customers and employes from the Friday before last:
• “And then she ran off to Vegas and got married.”
• “Maybe she don’t want it told around town. ... I can’t lie. I just can’t lie to people, so I don’t even want to know if it’s true.”
• “I’m not wastin’ my brain energy on that.”
• “She needs some coffee. Y’all need to quit playing.”
• “Oh yeah, I’ll be working. I’m not ready to retire. I’m gonna work until I can’t move.”
