Snapshots of History by Mike Avitt
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I love it when I get a new (to me) photograph. Sandy Moon posted this picture on Facebook and I was all over it! I knew who it was, when it was, and where it was.
Let’s start with the woman in front. She was Bernice Marie (Jackson) Moon and was born to Mr. and Mrs. (the former Evelyn Adams) Paul Jackson of Ellston in 1921. Paul was a long-time barber in Ellston. She gratuated from Ellston High School in 1938 with a graduating class of eleven.
After high school, Bernice attended Thompson Beauty School in Des Moines for one year. Her first job was in Leon and then she took a job in Greenfield. Then in May 1940, she went into business with Mrs. Marie Jackson when they bought the beauty shop of Mrs. Frank Mowry at 102 East Madison St. Ironically, Bernice Marie Jackson and Mrs. Marie Jackson were not related. Bernice didn’t stay at the business very long.
On March 7, 1942, Bernice wed Leland Porter Moon, also an Ellston High School graduate, in Omaha, Neb., which was also their home. Their son Stephen Allen Moon was born May 24, 1943.
Bernice’s health began to fail and she died in 1953 after being bedfast at her parent’s home in Ellston for a period of years. The newspaper listed arthritis as the cause of the decline.
When Bernice and Marie bought their shop, the business had previously been a beauty shop run by Mrs. Blanch Mowry for three years. Blanch and her husband Frank remodeled 102 E. Madison in January 1937. I believed it was they who built the apartment in the rear of the building.
Marie Jackson bought a beauty shop in Ames in February 1945 and employee Evelynne Hood promptly purchased half interest in the enterprise. Evelynne had been an operator there since 1943. Other employees were Mrs. John Gray and Dorine Pidcock.
Evelynne Hood married Nick Duros on June 26, 1946 and continued to operate the beauty shop. It appears Mrs. Marie Jackson retained ownership of the shop after she moved to Ames. In September 1952, Art Luckinbill opened a radio and television shop in the former Jackson Beauty Shoppe.
So, there was a beauty shop at 102 E. Madison from 1937 to 1952 and, of course, there were other beauty salons. Iris’s Beauty Salon opened in 1951 at 603 E. Madison St. Dorothy Seevers had a shop at 104 N. Taylor St. which she sold to Maurice Bartlett of Lamoni in May 1947. In July 1947, Crystal Pate Whittington bought Hazel Anderson’s beauty parlor at 105 S. Fillmore St. And then, in May 1957, Ina Stuck put a beauty shop back in 102 E. Madison.
When the Mowrys had the building, Frank put up partitions so half of the storefront was a beauty parlor and the other half was a barber shop. I think Bill Wheeler operated the barber shop for most of it’s existence.
102 E. Madison is part of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows building and this edifice is the oldest brick building in Mount Ayr having been built in 1877-78. The Second oldest brick is the Daily Flair building at 119 North Taylor St., having been erected in 1881 as the Ringgold Record newspaper office. The Third oldest brick is the Princess Theatre building at 101 W. Monroe – 1886. The Fourth oldest brick building is Shay Investment at 110 W. Madison – July 1890. The Fifth oldest is the Timby building at 100-102 W. Madison – December 1890 or January 1891. So there.
