Family members of Travis Dillard say he loved making money. But he also felt called to use it taking care of others.

Dillard died of complications of COVID-19 April 7, and a story has been on his nephew’s mind ever since then. 

A couple with a small child approached Travis Dillard outside a gas station. They asked if he could spare a dollar. He reached in his pocket and gave them a $50 bill.

Then, he was feeling lucky, so he went inside the store.

“He never would buy a lottery ticket,” says his nephew, David Dillard. “He bought a lottery ticket. He hit the lottery for $500.”

David Dillard knows this story because his uncle called immediately after to proclaim, “Ain’t God good?”

“He just was a blessed guy,” his nephew says.

Still, he says his uncle worked hard for what he had. He spent more than two decades maintaining public housing for the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency.

John Kelly grew up in the James Cayce Homes in East Nashville and says Dillard was this big, imposing guy who everyone knew. But instead of an intimidating presence, he became a kind of mentor. He says Dillard would talk about his own business plans. After more than two decades with MDHA, he parlayed the experience into his own career as a landlord.

“I had watched him go from a maintenance guy living in low-income housing, to leaving out, starting his own business and becoming somewhat successful,” Kelly says. “That’s a very positive thing for someone to do and for someone like me to visualize that could actually be done.”

After MDHA, he’d buy homes, fix them up himself and rent them out. His stepdaughter, Lekasha Goldthreate, says he was the most forgiving kind of landlord, allowing families to live in his homes rent-free at times.

She also partnered with him to start Keisha’s Ballroom Bar and Grill in East Nashville, and on Sundays, they cooked for the community, inviting homeless people to join them for a meal.

“We would open the door for anybody who wanted to come and eat,” Goldthreate says.

Leaving A Widow With COVID-19

When Dillard caught the coronavirus, he was hospitalized at Summit Medical Center, which meant no visitors. Goldthreate heard from him by phone for a few days. He seemed OK, she says.

Then, no word. She assumes he died alone.

They planned a small service April 10, which would have been his 49th birthday. His widow, Monica Dillard, couldn’t attend. She too had contracted COVID-19, so family and friends paraded by her house, honking their horns.

The video on Facebook shows Monica Dillard on her porch, in a blue mask, weeping so loudly it can be heard from the street.

Travis Dillard’s family has been contemplating ways to honor his life, in this time when large gatherings are off limits. Goldthreate says she wants to revive their free Sunday meals, even though they had to close their restaurant months ago.

“I don’t have the restaurant to do it,” she says. “But I’m going to find a way to make that happen.”