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For 46 years, she brought dignity to a humble job

Dispensing paper towels for a living, Lula Mae Tollaman was an icon at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published November 22, 2005

TAMPA - Lula Mae Tollaman watched the women come and go for 46 years.

The celebrities, the politicians, the little girls and their mommies. Some were on the dates of their lives. Others were counting the minutes until they could say goodnight to the man waiting out there at a linen-lined table for two.

"It's all right, baby," she'd say to a tearful waitress seeking refuge in the ladies room. "It's okay. Just be strong."

Mrs. Tollaman's job was a humble one. She sat in a chair in the ladies room at the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City for more than four decades, handing out paper towels and dispensing advice. A covered Bible was always at her side.

Before she died Saturday (Nov. 19, 2005), Mrs. Tollaman was a Tampa fixture, a celebrity of sorts, a local landmark in her own right. She chatted up Liza Minnelli and Eva Gabor. She once kept Marilyn Monroe talking and laughing so long that Joe DiMaggio came to the restroom looking for his girl.

In all those years working, no one ever remembers Mrs. Tollaman revealing her age: "I'm 39 and holding," she told a reporter in 2001.

Those who met Mrs. Tollaman sometimes wrote her letters afterward. She received more mail than anyone at the Columbia, said Richard Gonzmart, fourth-generation owner of the 100-year-old family restaurant.

"Here was a person who was so proud and yet she had a job that most people would say had little importance," said Gonzmart, who calls Mrs. Tollaman his second mother. "Everyone who met her had wonderful things to say about it. She'd treat you the same whether you were James Garner or Jim Smith."

Mrs. Tollaman's life first intersected with the Gonzmart family when Richard was 3 years old. She worked as a housekeeper in Gonzmart's grandparents' home before taking a job in the restaurant.

As a child, Richard would sneak into the ladies room to get his Lula Mae fill. It was natural that as a teenager, he would introduce his future wife to Mrs. Tollaman at the same time he introduced her to his mother.

Even as an adult, Richard has sought Mrs. Tollaman for guidance, counseling and a glimpse of that "beaming, beautiful smile."

"She'd turn me around like nobody could," Gonzmart said. "Not even my parents could do that."

Cesar Gonzmart, Richard's father, who owned the restaurant before he died in 1992 at age 72, counted Mrs. Tollaman a close friend. The two shared a relationship of mutual admiration, despite their differences in social status.

"If you never met him," she told La Gaceta newspaper last year, "you missed half your life."

When Cesar Gonzmart was in the hospital with cancer, Mrs. Tollaman pulled up a chair to visit with him. He told her to sit in the bed near him instead. He put his arm around her.

"Lula, I love you," he said.

Mrs. Tollaman attended all the Gonzmart family weddings and funerals. Over the years, 50-year-old Melanie Gonzmart figures, Mrs. Tollaman got to know things about her family that most people outside would never know. She never betrayed any confidences, Melanie Gonzmart said: "She was a lady."

Mrs. Tollaman's last day at work was Aug. 6, though she remained on the Columbia payroll until her death from cancer last week.

On Monday, a wreath of roses, carnations and daisies hung on a wall outside the restroom where she worked. Inside the wreath was her smiling photograph.

Despite her interest in others, Mrs. Tollaman kept her own life very private, her co-workers and friends said.

"She knew so much about us and yet we knew so little about her," a saddened Richard Gonzmart said.

She came to work around 4:30 p.m. each day and left around 11:30 p.m., six days a week.

Born in Georgia, Mrs. Tollaman spent most her childhood and life in West Tampa. She had a daughter, Betty Davis DeVore of Tampa; a son, the late Theron J. Tollaman; and four grandchildren. A graveside service is set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Rest Haven Memorial Park at 4615 E Hanna Ave. in Tampa.

[Last modified November 22, 2005, 02:15:27]