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Friday 15 February 2019

Bobbing, Shingling and Marcel Waves: Sepia Saturday

 "Bobbing, Shingling, Marcel Waving and Perming", was the promise of my cousin's mother "Elise" - otherwise Elsie Oldham of Blackpool, Lancashire. 


I have written previously about Elsie, but feature here some additional photograph of her life.


This  lovely evocative "blotter" reflects both  a hairdressing business and the 1920's style - so an ideal match for this week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph,  which shows a French window display of 1920's mannequins, promoting a "coiffeur" - a hairdressing salon.   
                                               

Elise's real name was Elsie Oldham (1906-1989)  but perhaps the French adaptation was regarded as more appropriate for a hairdresser.   The business was conducted from the rather less glamorous setting of the family home (below) with the large adverts in the windows and on the pole outside.  

The Oldham family was a well known one of  coal merchants and carters in Blackpool, Lancashire, with, behind their house,  the stables   a large yard, hay loft, tack room. and stabling for around seven horses. 
A  young ringlet Elsie with her grandfather Joseph Prince Oldham

 
An older Elsie - still with the disjunctive ringlets.

Elsie set up her hairdresser's around 1926.

On the death in 1939 of her father John William Oldham,  Elsie   took on the helm of the coal merchant business along with her husband Arthur Stuart Smith, seeing it  through the difficult wartime years,and  combining it with Elsie's own hairdressing activities. The coal merchant business was eventually sold around  1948 to another local firm, thus ending over 50 years of the family concern.    

When Elsie moved into a bungalow, one of the bedrooms was converted into a hairdresser salon, with Elsie working   until shortly before she died in 1989 - by that time the number of customers had dwindled to about three a week all of whom were as old as she was!  When the house was emptied a cupboard was discovered full of the tools of her trade and bottles of hair dye  in myriad colours - some of it must have been at least 20 or 30 years old!

  Elsie's old set of scissors and hair clippers


With thanks to Elsie's son,  for these photograph and memories. 

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Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity
to share their family history through photographs.


Click HERE to read how other Sepia Saturday bloggers 
have reflected this week's photograph

7 comments:

  1. Oh I wonder who the brave souls were who last used those old bottles of dyes. Elsie sounds like a very enterprising woman, and I'm sure you are proud to be related to her!

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  2. Love the photos of the shop window and the ads for her business. I agree that "Elise" sounds more exotic and appropriate for her career than "Elsie." She must have been a good hairdresser to keep loyal customers so long.

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  3. Great post. I love vintage hairstyles. My father's housekeeper, after my grandmother died, was named Elsie too.

    I admire Elsie/Elise for being able to take over the coal business as well as running her own.

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  4. A perfect fit for this week's theme! I like your last image of the scissors and clippers. We don't often think of the occupational tools that women used in their trade. There's something very intimate about cutting hair. It's a familiarity of touch that's only shared by doctors and dentists.

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  5. With just a switch of an 'i' Elsie had a French background. What a clever and industrious woman. Loved seeing the hairdresser tools of the day. I bet she had a collection of 'Wave Clips', along with 'DippityDo' of the day. Great photos...treasures all.

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  6. Nice take on the prompt! My Mom had some of those marcel wave clips in her makeup case and I used to try to use them in my hair, but they didn't work very well in long hair, and the waves wouldn't stay unless I used stiffening hair goo and I didn't like that stuff, so - Oh well.

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  7. I enjoyed reading all your comments - thank you.

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