Goodbye Dolly: Local legend Darlene Scott remembered as generous, welcoming

Dolly Scott always dreamed of having a pie shop. And when her wish came true, she never wanted to leave. Even in her 80s she was seen gracefully moving around Dolly’s Produce Patch & Eatery, tasting pies and greeting customers. Now that era is over. Darlene “Dolly” Scott passed away on May 23 at age 87.

She will probably be most remembered for her pies and for her generosity in sharing those pies with those that served the community. She always baked extras to give away to police officers and firefighters. She made mincemeat pies because nobody else in town did and customers asked for them. Her loyal customers had a variety of favorites from apple, banana cream and strawberry rhubarb pies, to coconut cream and lemon meringue pies. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas her staff typically makes more than 1,300 pies. Dolly stopped making pies years ago, but still came by the shop to taste them and oversee some of the baking.

“She would come up every day,” said her son Randy Alander. “She always had a voice in her business. She was doing things here right until the last week.”

Community members have fond memories of Dolly and her pies.

“We ran a (medical) emergency there and she thanked us for our services and brought us pie,” said Bonita Springs firefighter Dylan Hood. “I remember one of them was key lime pie, and it was delicious.”

“It was not expected, but definitely appreciated,” added Nicole Hornberger, Public Education Coordinator for the fire department.

Byron Liles has known Dolly for more than 40 years, first as her insurance agent and then as a customer in her restaurant. He and his cousins would have breakfast there twice a month.

“She would greet me and my cousins and she would come to our table and ask us how we were doing” Byron said. “She was just a lady that never lost her youthfulness and was an expert entrepreneur. She was a unique person, and she will be missed by the whole community.”

Charlie Strader, past president of the Bonita Springs Historical Society, admits he is not a big dessert person, but enjoyed going to Dolly’s for a meal.

“My first impression of her that comes to mind, was a smiling welcoming face,” Charlie recalled. “She didn’t care who you were, she was welcoming.”

Dolly also welcomed change and believed you were never too old to try something new. She was born July 12, 1935, in Minneapolis. When her husband was discharged from the army in Korea, he didn’t want to return to icy cold weather so the  family moved to Naples in 1953 and later relocated to Bonita Springs.

When her four children were grown, she went to Edison College (now Florida Southwestern) and became an RN. She worked at Naples Community Hospital and later as a private nurse. She got her pilot’s license but gave up flying after a near miss in the air. She changed careers again when her in-laws, who owned the building where Dolly’s is located, retired. Dolly bought the building began a produce stand business in 1996 with her son Randy. Soon she added food to the menu and later her wish came true.

“All I ever wanted was a pie shop,” Dolly often said.

She told us there a secret to her pie success.

“They are made with love,” she whispered back in 2019.

With no formal cooking or baking education, Dolly relied on cookbooks, intuition and just by trying new things.

When she fell, behind the restaurant, and fractured her back in five places, she didn’t let that stop her. Instead, she worked hard at her recovery and her story of overcoming the odds led her to be chosen as one of 7,000 people across the country to run with the Olympic Torch for the 2001 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Later she and her granddaughter Sonya Hunter did a three-day, 60-mile cancer walk from Boca to Miami and then accomplished the midnight sun walk with her granddaughter in Alaska.

“I am going to miss everything about her,” Sonya Hunter said. “I am going to miss scratching her back.”

Dolly continued to excel at new things. She was 70-years-old when she began ballroom dancing, and she eventually won three world championships and one national competition. She was still dancing at age 87 and actually did a big ballroom dancing showcase on May 12. Wearing a bright red dress, Dolly waved to the crowd, blew kisses to the crowd and dazzled the crowd with her crisscross delicate and graceful steps across the wooden floor as she danced with two tuxedo clad men to the song Hello Dolly.

“It is either amazing or she is a legend. It brought the house down,” Randy said.

On Monday, Randy sat at Dolly’s speaking of his fond memories of his mother.

“Everybody knows Dolly,” he said. “The Thanksgiving before last she called the cops and said, ‘It’s not an emergency, but I need a cop here.’ By the time she hung up there were six of them there. They thought something had happened. She trucks them all in and gives them pies and says, ‘take these back to the station. Take some to your wife.’ She was always making sure there were extra pies for them.”

Randy said Dolly didn’t have a favorite pie, but she did like apple pie and loved the chocolate peanut butter one.

“She loved chocolate,” he said. “If there was an odd piece in there, she would eat it.”

Dolly never wanted to stop working. In 2019 she told us her plan was to always be a part of Dolly’s

“I am cruising to make sure everything is the way it is supposed to taste,” she said in 2019. “If you are the owner, you do whatever needs to be done. It is like this is my house. I used to joke to my son that he should put in a murphy bed.”

Dolly and her late husband had four children; one passed away a couple of years ago from COVID. She has five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

“Mom was an amazing lady,” Randy said. “She always was by all our sides in anything we wanted to do in life. Anything we wanted to do she would help you. She said, ‘do what you want to do in life, and enjoy life to the fullest.’ ”

The family will receive friends on from 4 until 8 p.m., Friday, June 2, at Shikany’s Bonita Funeral Home, 28300 Tamiami Trail, Bonita Springs. Funeral services will be at 12 p.m., Saturday, June 3, at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 777 Mooring Line Drive, Naples. Burial will be private. A celebration of Dolly’s life will follow outside her restaurant beginning at 3 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Goodbye Dolly: Darlene Scott remembered as generous, welcoming