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 Photo provided
Lois Engel, center, of Lois Beauty Shop, poses for a photo with her two daughters Rebecca Davis, left, and Sandra Clausing.
By MARY BARGDILL
Staff Writer
ST. MARYS — After more than a half a century of helping customers look their best, a local beautician is remembered for her dedication and love of people.
Lois Engel, 99, set perms and cut hair since 1930. The Spencerville native owned and operated Lois Beauty Shop in downtown St. Marys since she moved to town as a bride in 1937. After two former locations on West Spring Street, Engel built the current shop located at 201 N. Front St.
Now, her two daughters Sandra Clausing and Rebecca Davis reflect on the legacy their mother left behind, and their part in keeping their mother’s memory alive.
“She just loved people,” Davis said. “She always told us to be kind to people.”
In February 1977, Engel officially retired when she sold her business to her two daughters at the age of 68. Thirty-one years later, she was still showing up to work and taking care of customers, until nearly six weeks before she passed away on July 7.
“She said she was going to work until she ran out of customers and it never happened,” Davis said.
Engel graduated from Spencerville High School in 1929, then attended the former Betty Jean Beauty Academy in Fort Wayne, Ind. Shortly after she offered “finger waves” from her grandmother’s living room in Spencerville for 25 cents.
Engel then went to work at the former Keith Hotel in downtown Spencerville, where she saved rent by bunking down in the storefront where her shop was located. She also saved money by giving free perms to the women who washed her towels.
After seven years of courtship, she married St. Marys native William Engel in 1937. When he refused to move to Spencerville, Engel agreed to move her shop to St. Marys. Ever a business woman, Engel was mindful of the potential clientele that would come with a larger community — even during the darkest days of the Great Depression.
“She always took chances, and she always won,” Davis said.
Davis and Clausing said their father’s mother Elsie Engel introduced customers to the then newest beautician in town through women she knew at church. Lois’ husband also convinced the women he worked with at the St. Marys Wool Mill to visit his wife for hair cuts and perms.
In 1940, the couple built Lois Beauty Shop, and in 1956, they doubled the size of the shop and added large bay windows overlooking the traffic on Front and High Streets.
“She said when she built her shop, she wanted big windows so she could see outside,” Clausing said.
Both their parents worked hard to make Lois Beauty Shop a success. Since 1966, their father worked with salesmen and customers alike to sell the Merle Norman Cosmetics line. He also helped with maintenance and cleaning the shop.
Through the years of running her business, Engel still managed to find time for her daughters and husband.
“She always saw to it she had time with her family,” Davis said, recalling the times her mother used to help her daughters sell boxes of Jell-O for a dime at West Elementary School for a Parent Teacher Association fund raiser. “She loved her kids, and grandkids and great-grandkids.”
After growing up in the business, Clausing and Davis followed in their mother’s footsteps as beauticians.
“I came in at 6 weeks old,” Davis joked, adding her mother used to place her in a rocker near her beautician’s chair. Clausing was introduced to the beauty shop when she was just two-years-old.
During the years, thousands of customers crossed the threshold to Lois Beauty Shop and each one was treated with respect.
“She catered to everybody,” Clausing said.” “She treated them all alike.”
Engel was a common face at local nursing homes where she would visit clients who were residents. Often she would prepare a client’s last hair style for the last time at one of the nearby funeral homes.
“Sometimes she would give up her church time and do shut in,” Davis said.
In 2003, Lois was named “Woman of the Year” by the St. Marys Community League of Women. That same year, she was recognized by the National Cosmetology Association for Best Charitable Event and was awarded the Giving Back Award.
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