Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

When you find your niche, you stay and you make a difference in the lives of everyone around you. The passing of Edith ‘Toot’ Wolfenbarger has left a sinkhole where an effervescent soul once was.

For 52 years, Wolfenbarger stood sentinel at her station at the Frostee Freeze, concocting scrumptious eats and dispensing a positive outlook to her coworkers and her customers. Well-known and well-loved, it didn’t matter whether she knew you personally or as ‘just’ an acquaintance, her workday was complete once she got the chance to converse with every person who walked through the doors of the historic diner.

Management posted their condolences on the Frostee Freeze Facebook page.

“Those that touch our lives, stay in our hearts forever. We are saddened by the passing of Edith ‘Toot’ Wolfenbarger. She was the cook at the Frostee for 52 years. She was not only an employee; she was family. Edith will be greatly missed by all of us and our prayers are with the family during this difficult time,” reads the post.

Tara Duncan shared her thoughts.

“Oh, she was a hoot; so full of life and energy.”

Brandi Ely Crawford says she “just loved Toots.

“So glad I got to see and talk to her not too long ago.”

Christy Epperson, who worked alongside Edith during school, said “she was the best.”

Diana Sweet recalled Edith as “lovely inside and out. She had a heart of gold.”

Whitney Bowling said she was saddened to hear of ‘Toot’s’ passing.

“I took her home almost every night during my seven years at the Frostee. She was always giving advice and talked the whole way home,” said Bowling.

Loretta Dyer Pittman recalled her first job, working at the Frostee Freeze.

“I worked night shift with her and even though we butted heads at first, we became good friends. I thought the world of her and I’m saddened by her passing. You will be greatly missed, Toot,” said Pittman.

March 2024 would have marked six years since the retirement of the energetic 75-year-old from the popular Tazewell drive-in/diner. Wolfenbarger was 81 at the time of her death.