Beauty Salon Chatter

I was at my Yuma hairdresser’s last week as we were going to a family wedding in California and I was trying to look more presentable for the occasion. As I was sitting there listening to the ambient chatter of other clients in the shop, I was struck by the difference in the topics of conversations in my little salon here in Yuma and the salon I patronize in my other life in Portland, Oregon.

The community where I spend the winter months is in Yuma, Arizona. It is a very large retirement area (the Foothills) which draws ‘snowbirds’ largely from the Northwest area of the United States and the Western provinces of Canada. The salon is only a couple of blocks from our house. I have never seen anyone in there under the age of 60 – neither clients nor hairdressers. I could look all I want for a more ‘upscale, hip salon’ in SW Arizona, but it would be futile. I once got a fancy hairdo at one of the ‘fancy’ salons in downtown Yuma for an older friend’s wedding about 8 years ago. I came out of the place looking much like my senior prom photo from 1963 without the tiara. Not the best look for a 60+ year old lady.

So now I just pop into this little shop that is walking-distance from my home and get my hair trimmed and an occasional ‘do’ for something special. I have recently begun to pay attention to the chatter of the people in the salon. I suppose I began comparing it to the chatter I hear when I go to the salon I use when I’m in Portland for the summers. It is in NW Portland just off the famed, chi-chi NW 23rd Street. Its called Caporicci Sweet. Here’s a Google photo of the front of the shop.

Below is a photo of some of the gorgeous, hip hairdressers who work at Caporicci’s. You can tell from these photos that if you get anything done with your hair at their salon, you are going to look spectacular – or at least as good as you can possibly look. If you have an afternoon appointment, they even offer you a glass of Chardonnay when you come in! Tres chic!

The salon I go to in our desert retirement community is in a doublewide next to our embattled, local Water and Sewer Company. It offers a different ambience for a completely different clientele. Most of the customers out here are well over 70 years old. They want their hair to look EXACTLY like their mother’s and their grandmother’s hair did, when they used to go to a beauty shop back in ‘the day.’

As you can see from this photo, we have real tumbleweeds growing along our roads here in the desert – nature’s landscaping.

There is also a major difference in pricing for the various services you’d like to have done on your hair between the downtown Portland salon and the shop out here. The Portland salon would wipe out a good bit of a lot of these people’s social security checks in one visit. Whereas many of the elderly ladies here in the desert get their hair done every week, people usually go to the Portland salon once every month, or so. Appointments are booked in Portland weeks or months in advance. You can get into the little salon out here the same day you call.

Now, back to the original point of my story, which is mainly the difference in the conversations heard around the two very different shops.

When I was in last week here in Yuma, there were 3 other customers having their hair done. All of the conversations around the shop were about various friends and relatives that were, or had been, in and out of the hospital for a variety of ailments. Heart surgeries, heart attacks, broken bones, joint replacements, dialysis, one transplant, pneumonia, stents, cancers, Valley Fever, etc. There were also recitations of who had died since they were in last week. All this decline and death pulsing to the music from a local country radio station.

As I sat there listening to this litany of medical misfortunes and deaths, I actually felt really good about the state of my own aging self. Yikes! I didn’t have any of those troubles, but then I began thinking it is probably only a matter of time. As I looked at the other women in the shop, I realized that I was a good 10 to 15 years younger than they were. A couple of them had been wheeled into the shop in wheelchairs by aged, wheezing husbands, and another one hobbled in using her walker.

When I am in the Portland salon, it feels like a parallel universe. I am by far the oldest person in there. People in this hip salon are talking about what’s happening around town, the best new restaurants they’ve patronized, what concerts and galleries have opened, the latest art scene, the latest music scene, children, divorces, weddings, new lovers, chic new boots, Pilates, health clubs, etc. Cool music streams from Pandora radio. The chatter is about life and living – not about death and dying.

There is also a big difference in the reading material sitting around for when you have to wait. In Portland, there are lots of very stylish magazines and books with photos of the latest hair styles you might like to try out. Copies of Elle, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and style books abound. Not Us, Star, or National Inquirer. Here in Yuma, tabloids are the bulk of the reading choices around the shop, with the addition of AARP, Trailer Life, Motorhome, and many issues of the large-print Reader’s Digest. There would be no point in having a new age hairstyle book for something chic and modern when the people coming into the Yuma shop want the same thing as they always get – bluish tint (to cover up the yellowing of their aging hair), cut very short, tightly permed, then teased and sprayed with several layers of lacquer so it lasts for the whole week before they need to come back again.

Our little desert salon briefly experimented with a TV for their customers, which sadly, ran only either Fox News or afternoon soap operas (I didn’t know those were still around). Fortunately, the TV has been turned off the last couple times I’ve gone in there. I can tolerate the country music over the blaring TV – if I have to choose between the two.

It is interesting for me to have these contrasting salon environments in my life. I can smugly sit in this tiny desert shop in the winters and feel lucky I’m not worse off than I am at age 69. Then, I can sit in the Portland salon in the summers, look around at all the gorgeous people and feel pathetic, but hopeful. I’ll have a refill on my Chardonnay, please. Who’s going to say ‘no’ to an old lady? Hahaha!

My Maternal Great Grandparent’s ‘Coming to America’ Story

This is the story of my Maternal Great Grandparent’s life – and how they came to America.

Anna Elizabeth Kolbe was born on Jan. 1, 1857 in Dortmund, Germany to Anna Stolzenbac and Gottfried Kolbe of Hessee Kassle. Gottfried, Anna Kolbe’s father, was a stonemason and her mother was a housewife.

In 1875, Anna Elizabeth Kolbe married Karl Kristian Koch from Kassel, Germany. Karl’s father, Henry, was the keeper of the Black Forest for Kaiser Wilhelm. This was a highly coveted and respected occupation. Karl grew up playing with Kaiser Wilhelm’s children in this beautiful forest. Below is a photo of a painting of the house where Karl grew up which used to hang in the Koch’s parlor in San Antonio, Texas.

The Black Forest is in the S.W. part of Germany, bordered by the Rhine River and Rhine Valley to the West and the South. The Rhine flows toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Danube River originates in the Black Forest and flows south to the Black Sea. The Black Forest used to be made up of mostly hardwoods which, sadly, got mostly logged off and then replaced with fast-growing pines and firs. It was Henry Koch’s job, as chief Forester of the Black Forest, to make sure its woods and game we’re preserved for the Kaiser. He wouldn’t have been very happy to see what happened to it after he was gone.

During the 1800, many Germans and other Europeans were emigrating to America. America was growing and developing rapidly and the country was recruiting talented and adventuresome people to help in the development and growth. Karl and several of his friends found out that the U.S. Government would give them each 320 acres of land in Texas if they would agree to homestead and improve the land in Texas. They were required to build a house or cabin and plant crops or begin raising animals within one year of arriving in America. They were eager to take America up on this offer so they could build prosperous lives for their families. It would have been unheard of to own 320 acres anywhere in Germany or Europe, so this looked like an incredible opportunity to them.

Karl convinced Anna that this was a wonderful opportunity for their family. It was late 1880. They already had a 5 year-old son (Henry) and Anna was pregnant again. Karl was to go to America first, claim their land and build a house, and then Anna and the children were to come to America to join him.

Karl sailed on the passenger ship “Alsatia,” departing from London, England. He arrived in New York at the Castle Garden Immigration station. He completed his paperwork, passed his physical exam, and then he and his friends boarded a train for Texas to claim their land and get started with their new lives as farmers and ranchers. It did not take him, or his friends, very long to realize they were not cut out to be farmers or cattlemen on the wild frontier of Texas. They had been gentlemen tradesmen in Germany and in Texas they encountered hostile Indians, wild animals, poisonous snakes, outlaws, gunfighters, and a general lack of the kind of civilization they experienced in Germany. He wrote a letter to Anna back in Germany telling her to not follow him to America because he was probably going to return to Germany. He did not want her and their children living in such a wild, uncivilized place as Texas. Anna never received the letter.

Karl began looking for a different opportunity other than being a farmer or rancher. He heard about a German industrialist, George Holmgreen, who started an ironworks company in 1875 further south in San Antonio, Texas. He contacted Holmgreen and told him of his Engineering training and skills and Holmgreen hired Karl on the spot. He promised to provide Karl and his family with the proverbial “two-story house with a tidy white picket fence” if Karl would agree to work for the Alamo Iron Works. Karl gave up his free homestead farmland and moved to San Antonio. A listing in the San Antonio City Registry shows the Karl Koch family living at 222 Devine Street in San Antonio in 1891.

Here is a photo of Karl at the Alamo Iron Works in 1894. He was a skilled machinist and engineer at the foundry. He is the man in the 2nd row (standing), 2nd from the left. He was 40 years old at this time.

Meanwhile, back in Germany, Anna gave birth to a baby girl. The name of this little girl is lost forever as many German birth records were destroyed during the destruction of much of Germany during the two world wars. When the new baby was about 6 months old, Anna packed up her little family and lit out for America. She departed from Amsterdam on a passenger ship named the “Castor” and arrived at the Castle Garden Immigrant intake station in New York on August 9, 1881. She sent a telegram to Karl telling him they were now in America and would be crossing the USA to Texas by train. She asked him to meet them at the train station at their specified arrival time. The trains ran on time back then.

A cross-country train trip in the 1880s was a grueling affair. Anna was so excited for Karl to see their new baby girl. However, after getting most of the way to San Antonio, Texas, the baby got “summer complaint,” which is an old term people used to describe a severe fever, diarrhea and dehydration that killed many babies in the ages before antibiotics were discovered. The baby died in her arms on the train and Anna held her tightly to her chest, determined to carry her the last 100 miles, so Karl could see their baby and they could bury her at their new home.

However, a train conductor on board saw her weeping and holding her precious baby close to her chest, and he guessed what had happened. He ordered the train stopped. He told Anna that she had to bury her baby right then and there. All the people got off the train for a short make-shift prayer service, and her baby was buried alongside the train tracks just outside of the town of Luling, Texas, at a site unknown. Everyone got back on the train and when she arrived in San Antonio a few hours later, she had to tell Karl that the baby had not survived the trip. This was a great sadness for the little family.

Karl and Anna had a wonderful life in San Antonio, Texas. Karl rose at the Alamo Iron Works as the company grew and prospered and he retired from there in 1931 after working 50 years. Here is a photo of the large silver loving cup Karl was presented when he retired from the Alamo Iron Works. The inscription reads “Presented to Charles Christian Koch by the Alamo Iron Works with the best wishes and congratulations on the completion of 50 years service with the company. San Antonio, Texas, May 14, 1931.” Notice that his name in 1931 has the American spelling of his German name. When he became an American citizen, he was forced to change the spelling of his name to the anglo version.

Karl and Anna had a total of 14 children of which 11 survived into late adulthood. All of their surviving children lived into their late 80s and 90s, and the eldest, Henry – who made the trip all the way from Germany with Anna in 1881 – lived to be 102.

Here is a photo of Karl and Anna Koch with my mother Dorothy Lucille Westcourt, age 2, and her sister, Annels Marie Westcourt, age 6. This photo was taken in about 1927.

Here are some of the other things my grandmother, Emily Koch Westcourt, told me about her mother Anna Koch:

Anna made every single piece of clothing that the family wore – everything from underwear to their Sunday best.

German was spoken in the family home by the elders, but the kids often spoke English which they learned in school. Karl spoke English since he was out in the working world and needed to know it well. Anna was mostly in the home and never learned much English.

All the girl’s ‘unmentionables’ (underclothes) had to be hung out to dry on the clotheslines in the back yard only after dark, and brought into the house before daylight, so as not to be offensive and scandalous to the community.

On Sunday morning before church, Karl would line all the girls up on the front porch to make sure he couldn’t see the outline of their legs through their Sunday dresses if they stood in the sunshine. If he could, he’d send them back into the house to put on more petticoats.

The butcher would deliver meat to their back gate every morning. Anna would tell the butcher the day before what kind of meat she wanted delivered the next day. With no refrigeration in those days, everything had to be purchased fresh and used the same day or canned.

A fruit and vegetable seller in a wagon would deliver fresh vegetables and fruit to the back gate every morning. Whatever was in season was available to buy. My grandmother said most produce cost 3 or 4 cents for an entire bushel.

Karl (Grosspapa) would never eat corn-on-the-cob. He would say “only pigs eat corn that way.” Anna would always have to cut Karl’s corn off the cob onto his plate so he could eat it with a fork. The kids all thought it was very American to eat it off the cob and they wanted to eat it like Americans.

Karl had always had beer in the old country. Every gentleman had beer with lunch and before his dinner. When he came to America he and his fellow Germans carried on with that tradition. When Prohibition was passed in 1920, the German community thought Americans were plain crazy. People had always made their own beer and life without beer was unimaginable to Germans. They continued to make beer for their own households in spite of the law. Prohibition ended in 1933. Anna never drank beer or any other alcoholic beverage. The family did make their own wine and I have Anna’s handwritten recipe for making wine out of wild grapes.

The family made all their own soap out of rendered fat and lye from ashes.

The back part of the yard was partitioned off where the family kept chickens for meat and eggs. Some families kept pigs, too. Anna refused to keep pigs and my grandmother said Anna never once cooked pork for the family. It was said that Anna’s mother, Anna Stolzenbac, was Jewish and had converted to Christianity when she married Gottfried Kolbe against her family’s wishes. But she kept many Jewish dietary restrictions such as not eating pork, which Anna picked up from her.

The back yard area also had a large fenced vegetable garden where a lot of the family’s produce was grown. There were also berry bushes and fruit trees.

All of the kids had chores that they were in charge of doing on Saturdays – each as to their own ability. Anna always said ‘cleanliness was next to Godliness,’ so everyone had to pitch in to keep the house, yard, etc. clean. It would have been unthinkable that any of the kids would complain about or not complete their Saturday chores promptly.

Every night before bed, the whole family was gathered together in the parlor where they read the Bible and said their prayers. They were part of the German Lutheran Congregation in San Antonio. Church activities were a big part of their life in the community.

Anna Kolbe was known as a ‘good woman’ by the poor and hobos, and she would always give them something to eat if they knocked at the back gate. She believed that feeding the poor and hungry was her Christian duty and the right thing to do.

When the oldest of Karl’s and Anna’s children were grown and out of the family home, Anna’s mother, Anna Stolzenbac Kolbe, came from Germany to live out her last years with Karl and Anna. She had been widowed 1896 when her husband, Gottfried Kolbe died. Here is a photo of her with Anna’s and Karl’s youngest children, Emily on the right (my Grandmother Emily Koch Westcourt) and Estelle on the left. Grandmother Kolbe was 95 years old. This photo was taken in 1896 in the back yard of the family home in San Antonio, TX. Anna Kolbe died later that same year.

All of the Koch’s surviving 11 children went to college and got an education – even the girls. This was unusual back in those days. Later, each of the children and their families contributed a little money to their parents to help support them in their old age. Karl had a pension from the Alamo Iron Works but the kids wanted them to have a plentiful life. With 11 kids, they each only had to give a little to make sure their parents were comfortable.

Anna would never speak of the children that had died – especially the little baby girl she had to bury next to the lonely railroad tracks near Luling, Texas. If anyone asked her, she would cry and refuse to speak of it. She had a baby that was stillborn in Germany when Henry was 3 years old, a couple years before Karl went to America. That baby’s name is lost, also. She had another girl named Caroline, who died in infancy – like the baby on the train – of the “summer complaint.”

Karl Kristian Koch died on March 18, 1942 in his San Antonio home in the company of many of his daughters. His sons were all overseas serving in World War II. This was 9 years after his beloved Anna had passed away.

Anna Elizabeth Kolbe Koch passed away peacefully on April 15, 1933 surrounded by many of her children and grandchildren in her San Antonio home. My grandmother, Emily Westcourt, who was Anna’s and Karl’s next to the last child, was with her when she died, and she told me that right before Anna passed, she was making running motions in the bed with her little feet, reaching out with her arms, and joyfully calling out to her many loved ones who had died before her – as if she could see them and was running towards them with open arms.