Family Love Through Changing Seasons

I graduated from Hurley’s six months later and got my first hairdressing job at the Powder Puff Beauty Salon, on 23rd Avenue in Moline. We wore white uniforms and white shoes. That was the law. The white uniforms might have made me look professional, but it certainly did not give me the wisdom and experience I really needed to develop my own style. The majority of the time I spent working at the Powder Puff, I shampooed hair until I established my own clientele. It must have paid off because, my daughter tells me, I give the best, most relaxing, head-massaging, you-will- definitely-fall-asleep shampoos ever. With the first paycheck I got from working as a hairdresser, I went to the most elite store in downtown Moline, The New York Store. I must have thought I’d made the big time like the rich and famous. I purchased a red turtleneck sweater. It was made out of one of the new synthetic materials. I always say, “It pays to buy the best.” I still have and wear that sweater. I was married for thirteen years to Ernie Comstock. Those years were filled with motorcycles, traveling, Susy’s dancing, and my beauty salon. This was my world. I loved Ernie passionately and enjoyed giving Susy everything I did not have as a child. We had a swimming pool, a trampoline, motorcycles, and traveled everywhere. Come to find out later, Susy would have traded everything for just a brother or a sister. After I married Ernie, I established Dee’s Beauty Salon in Coal Valley, Illinois. Hence, my nickname, Dee. As soon as I opened the doors I was successful. It took no time at all for the patrons to start piling in. I guess all those hours of playing paper dolls and dressing up as glamour girls paid off. In a sense, my hairdressing also became my social life. I have made so many terrific lifelong friends through my work. Faye Swears was a customer I attained at the Powder Puff and she has stuck with me through thick and thin, wherever I went, since. Faye is eighty-some years old now, and just as beautiful and active as the day I met her. The past thirty-five years of hairdressing has been the joy of my life. I was so lucky to have stumbled onto a career that enabled me to use my God-given talent. In all of my years, not once have I ever said, “I have to go to work.” I have never considered my career a job. I have always loved what I do. February 4, 1977, my bubble burst. I was divorced. Presently, I have not remarried. Still, I am very content with my daughter Susy, and my two granddaughters, Annah and Bryce, by my side. Currently, my daughter and I enjoy working in the gardens, and hunting for lost treasures at yard sales, flea markets, antique stores and craft shows. In short, we like to go “junking.” I am the official costume maker for my granddaughters, as Susy won’t even touch a needle, and I am getting pretty good at restoring antique furniture. If I have learned anything through the trials and tribulations of my life it would be this: I have survived the worst of times, I have enjoyed the best of times. And I could have conquered it all alone if I had to. But I didn’t have to, because I have family and we have the most precious gift Mom gave us all, unconditional love.