News: Granton – Barbershop Closes after 65 Years (2021)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Lavey, Mabie, Tobish, Spry, Schwarze, Zaleski, Andrews

Source: Tribune/Record/Gleaner (Abbotsford, WI) 19 May 2021

On May 14, 2012, the founder and former owner of Dave’s Barbershop in Granton, Dave Lavey officially said goodbye to the place he had made his living cutting hair and shaving faces for 58 years. It is almost poetic then, that nine years to the day of his retirement, Dave’s Barbershop is officially closing its doors, with 65 years of business.

Though Dave Lavey himself has been gone for six years, his wife, Bev Lavey and the barbershop’s current owner, Candace Andrews, took some time on their final day of business to reminisce about Dave’s career, the shop, and all the memories they share together.

“I think he would have been content to see the wonderful impact it had on the community,” said Bev. “He would understand.”

The small, 16X20 building with its iconic spinning barbershop pole just outside the door has long been a part of Granton’s downtown landscape. But before the shop, there was just Dave, a recent Loyal High School graduate who was working at the Loyal Canning Factory.

It was here that the first incident occurred that eventually led on to Dave’s career as a barber. One summer, Bev recalled, he had been working in the factory when a kettle of peas fell on his foot, causing him an injury that not only prevented him from joining the military, but also set him against working for another man ever again.

“He was working in the canning factory (in Loyal) in the summer,” she said. “There was this huge kettle of peas that fell onto his foot and it later kept him out of the service. It had happened on a Saturday night and after it happened, his bosses were arguing about who was going to take him home. The way they argued bothered him and he had said that he would not work for anybody else ever again.”

So he didn’t. He instead went off to school in Eau Claire where he learned the barbering business. After a year of education, the next step in the business was to take on an apprenticeship, which led him to Waterford, where he worked for six months.

After his time in Waterford, Dave was informed by his instructor that Milo Mabie of Neillsville was looking for an apprentice at his shop. Tired of the long commutes by train back to his hometown of Granton to see his family and his future wife on holidays, Dave jumped at an opportunity to work much closer to home. He completed his apprenticeship and journeyman training under Mabie, got married, and moved to Altoona with his growing family to work for Ralph Tobish, who had opened a shop there.

But the Granton community would not have Dave away for long. A few months after Dave and his family settled in Altoona, three businessmen from Granton came searching for him and his skill with a razor. At the time, there were two barbershops operating out of Granton, but they had recently closed and left the village without a barber. They begged him to come back to Granton and open his own business, and intrigued by the opportunity, Dave decided to investigate.

What he found was troubling. Both of the shops that currently existed in Granton were very old, so old that the state inspector had declared they wouldn’t pass the standards necessary for Dave to open his own business. Knowing he didn’t have the finances to either fix them up or build new, he dropped the matter. But the businessmen came back.

“Lloyd Spry and Durward Schwarze and I believe Harry Zaleski too, they came,” said Bev. “Dave had decided that we couldn’t afford this, but they told us they would build a shop and pay for it. Then we could pay them back with the intention of owning the shop. It was like a living contract.” The proposal was acceptable to Dave, and so, for $3,000 to build the barbershop and $900 to purchase the equipment, Dave’s Barbershop was born. They officially opened on Nov. 19, 1956, and quickly made a place for themselves in the Granton community. Over the years, business waxed and waned with the styles — the 1960s, Bev recalled, were particularly rough with everyone’s long hair — but Dave stayed and became good friends with everybody who came through his door.

“He never came home and told me things that happened in the shop,” said Bev on Dave’s professionalism. “He never said, ‘This was said by so-and-so.’ That was all barbershop stuff and he kept it all there.”

That was the way it was for 39 years. But Dave wasn’t destined to be a solo act forever. During the 1990s, Andrews had begun to take an interest in coming to Dave’s Barbershop to work. She already had experience working at a shop in Marshfield and was looking for someplace closer to home so she could spend more time with her then growing family. Knowing Dave, she decided to give him a call.

“I talked to Dave about coming to work in Granton,” said Andrews. “I called him for four years in a row before I said that I would try somewhere else if he didn’t take me. I had worked in Marshfield at the time and we had decided it was best to make the change and move shop. It was then he said, ‘I think I’m ready for you.’” Andrews started there in July 1995 and business surged up once again. Bringing her own skills in women’s hairstyles, Andrews opened up the barbershop to new areas of business, and Dave was glad to have her.

“When I came it was a barbershop,” she said. “Not everyone was on board with a lady coming in and bringing in her perms and colors. It was a men’s spot. But Dave said, ‘She is here because I want her here.’” Though her skill set was with women, Dave quickly taught Andrews the other areas of the business. And when other women were hired, he taught them too.

“He taught us,” said Andrews. “We didn’t know a lot of the barbering and tapering. The shaving, we had never done that. Very few shops still did shaving. For quite a few years there weren’t many people that had that done, but now I see it’s making a comeback.”

The addition of Andrews to the barbershop proved to be a long-term investment in the future of the business. A few years after Andrews came on board, she said Dave came to her about renting her chair in the barbershop. A bit surprised by this request, Andrews said she went to talk to her husband, Jeff, to figure out what to do. Why not buy the shop? he asked. And so she went back to Dave with her counter-proposal.

“I worked with Dave for two years when he told me that he wanted me to rent my chair,” she said. “I told Jeff and he said, ‘Oh you might as well be buying it then.’ I came back to Dave and told him what Jeff said and he said, ‘Well I never thought about selling it.’ It ended up being almost two years of working there in June 1997 when I bought it.”

Once ownership was changed over to Andrews, she said the original plan was to allow Dave the chance to slowly transition out of working at the shop and into retirement. But old habits die hard, and Dave just couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye just yet.

“Dave was just going to stay on a couple of years,” she said with a laugh. “Eighteen years later he retired, on May 14, just a day before turning 80.”

Dave’s longevity in the business is very uncommon, Andrews said. Cutting hair and creating hairstyles puts a lot of strain on the arms, and speaking from experience, she said it becomes more difficult to do the job the more the years go by.

“You have your arms up all the time,” she said. “One of the reasons (I am closing the shop) was that I started having shoulder problems. I wouldn’t be able to barber as long as he did.”

Before making the hard decision to close down Dave’s Barbershop, Andrews said she had tried to find anyone willing to take over the business. But with no interest, she is closing its doors for now and is hoping that someone in the future will take a look at the dainty little building with its stripey pole and see the potential.

“I haven’t had any luck with anyone to buy the business,” she said. “But it’s kind of an icon in Granton. I hope it will be reopen someday as a new business.”

But until then, Bev, Andrews and the Granton community will have to be content with the memories that Dave and his little barbershop brought to the downtown area.

“There was no one quite like him,” said Andrews.