Dorothie “Dottie” Dekko grew up a student of her family’s North Dakota dairy business where strength and self-sufficiency were key values at a time when most little girls were taught to smile politely. At age 11, she saw an ad for and ice cream machine and convinced her father to purchase it. Soon, the family was running a successful ice cream shop, which they expanded to five locations across the city of Minot.

That venture was an early sign of Dekko’s keen entrepreneurial instincts. As an adult residing in the Twin Cities, she put together the investor group that brought the Minnesota Kicks professional soccer team to town in the 1970s. She published several cookbooks. She brought Chico’s to Minnesota when it was a small clothing shop little known beyond Sanibel Island, Florida, and she grew it to a dozen locations, which she and her family ran for 21 years, before selling to Chico’s corporate office in 2007.

Dekko, who successfully juggled motherhood, business, and philanthropy with her signature style and grace passed away on Dec. 15. Her family said she lived a “remarkably long and fulfilling life,” but would not confirm her exact age.

“A lady who tells her age will tell you anything,” Dekko famously told her four children, who took it to heart.

“My mother never shied away from doing something because it hadn’t been done before,” said her daughter and Chico’s business partner Danna Atherton. “And in her generation, women were not encouraged to do those kinds of things.”

Love and soccer

After graduating from the University of North Dakota with a degree in home economics, Dekko landed a job as home economist at Northern States Power company in Minneapolis. She taught homemakers how to use the then-new electric stove.

She met Thomas Dekko on a blind date and the two married in 1953, a union that would span 49 years, until Thomas’s death in 2002. In 1955, pregnant with her first of four children, Dekko stared an investment club, charting more than 300 stocks daily.

Star Tribune sports columnist Jim Klobuchar wrote that Dekko was “born in the fast lane.”

A longtime soccer fan, Dekko got inspired to bring the sport to Minnesota when the North American Soccer League’s Denver Dynamos went up for sale. She pulled together a group of 10 business investors who bought the team, which became known as the Minnesota Kicks. They played at Metropolitan stadium in Bloomington. The team existed for just six seasons, from 1976 to 1981, but they were a force, winning the Soccer Bowl that very first year and reaching the playoffs in every season they played.

SuperValu Chairman Jack Crocker, who served as investor and chair of the Kicks, wrote a letter to Dekko on the eve of the team’s first season. “You may always keep this letter as a reminder that it was you, Dottie Dekko, who stood firm and had the confidence to be persistent that we bring big-league professional soccer to Minnesota. Had you personally been any less insistent that we create this new organization, in all probability, there would be no Kicks.”

As the Minnesota Kicks took off, Dekko parlayed her ability to bring parties to the table into a cookbook career. Her first cookbook, Cooking for Kicks: The Sport of Tailgating, was published in 1978, featuring recipes from sports stars and fans. Next came The National Food Lovers Cookbook in 1981. But it was her third book, The Fast Lane Diet, published by McGraw Hill in 1985, that brought national acclaim. Star Tribune sports columnist Jim Klobuchar wrote that Dekko was “born in the fast lane,” noting her cookbook writing qualifications included everything from being a freelance investor to driving her kids to hockey practice.

According to her family, Dekko’s work in nutrition landed her a position on the Land O’Lakes Advisory Committee.

The retail years

“My mom had an uncanny way of seeing around the corner to what’s next,” Atherton said. “She had no fear of failure.”

On a family trip to Sanibel Island, Florida in the mid 1980s, Dekko spotted the next thing. She was visiting a small, spare clothing store called Chico’s, and watched as women grabbed the one-size-fits-all cotton pieces out of boxes before the staff could even get them on the racks.

This was the beginning of casual Fridays and comfort dressing, Atherton said. “There’s something going on here that we need to be part of,” Dekko told her daughters. She convinced Chico’s founders, Marin and Helene Gralnick, to allow her to franchise the brand, becoming the company’s first licensee. They shook hands and wrote a one-page licensing agreement, Atherton recalled. Her sister Lezlie Dekko Bork moved back to Minnesota to work on the business and Atherton’s husband Rick Atherton soon joined as well. (The Athertons now run a retail consultancy and serve on the board of Everve, among others.)

The first Minnesota Chico’s opened at 50th & France in 1986. They grew it to a dozen locations, which the family ran for 21 years, eventually selling to Chico’s FAS in 2007 for an undisclosed sum.

Asked which of her mother’s career chapters was Dekko’s favorite, Atherton said the Chico’s era, without a doubt, because she got to work with her daughters.

“My mom always had a great sense of style and a natural curiosity about people,” Atherton said.

Service and awards

Throughout the years, Dekko found time to give back. She launched the March of Dimes Gourmet Gala in Minneapolis to raise funds of children’s health and went on to serve their National Council of Volunteers, which eventually honored Dekko with a Distinguished Voluntary Leadership Award. She was active with United Way as well. In 1983, WCCO bestowed the “Good Neighbor Award” on Dekko for her outstanding service. Two years later, she received the Sioux Award from her alma mater, the University of North Dakota, for “distinguished service and outstanding achievement.”

Dekko is survived by her second husband, Dr. Richard Frey, four children and their spouses as well as eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

“I think her greatest legacy, to her grandchildren, and great grand children, is to be brave, and take a chance,” Atherton said. “Because it just might change your life.”