Milwaukee trailblazer Deloris "Dee" Sims died unexpectedly, her legacy lives on

Margret Henningsen remembers a no-nonsense businesswoman in Deloris who she fondly called Dee.

"She devoted every resource she had available to herself, everything inside of her that she could just pull out and say, help me to think about the right things I should be doing to follow this path," recalls Margret Henningsen.

A path that started out as a part-time teller at First Star Bank. where she worked up the ranks to become a vice president. She left First Bank after twenty-eight years, but not before managing five center city branches.

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"A person who people said she will never make it happen, " said Henningsen.

That tenacity and dedication led her to partner with Henningsen and charter Legacy Bank in 1999.

"The public would have their way, in that Dee was the queen bee of commercial and small business lending," recalls Henningsen. "And I was the queen bee of mortgage lending."

Watch: Remembering and honoring the legacy of trailblazer Deloris "Dee" Sims

Remembering and honoring the legacy of trailblazer Deloris "Dee" Sims

The two were in a class all by themselves. Known as the "Loan Rangers," they set out to fight financial lending discrimination. Before the bank closed in 2011 it was a beacon of hope for many minority business owners. Henningsen shares just a few of the deals Dee closed.

"Ponderosa, first, Ponderosa owned by a woman of color, Fred Jones, when he opened up the Pancake House, the first person of color that had a franchise for IHOP."

Former Milwaukee mayor Tom Barett first met Dee when he was in Congress.

"It was phenomenal to see the determination that she displayed in really filling a vacuum that we had in Milwaukee because there were neighborhoods that had no access to lending, and with her history in banking, she recognized that."

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While Dee was all business, the family was always at the center of her "why". The mother of two was not only the pillar for her daughters, but the entire family. Her niece, Nicole Johnson summed up her aunt's influence in two sentences.

"She was the role model. She was the model!"

Dee's life's work was helping people through economic assistance giving them the power to help themselves.

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