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Parker - Emlenton PA Area

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Parker - Emlenton PA Area

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90th Birthday
Article by Leroy Andre 9/17/03

     A Parker City woman, who is well versed in the history of Parker and other Armstrong County areas recently celebrated her 90th birthday, and recalled many incidents for her friends and relatives who helped her celebrate.
     Still residing in the lone house along the river in the lower section of Parker, Helen Kepple Buckley still maintains her beauty shop next to the Parker House. Many of the buildings that had contained stores have been converted to apartments but only hers is the traditional family home.
     Born in Sugar Creek Township, Armstrong County, on September 4, 1913, to Plumber and Sadie Bowser Kepple, Helen graduated from East Brady High School, after attending a one-room school near her family's farm. In December, 1931, she enrolled in the Kenmore Beauty College in Pittsburgh, which later closed shortly after she graduated.
     She still has her textbook and completed the full course, that included hair dressing, manicuring and facial work, using irons heated in gas fires, using one while the other heated, in the complicated process of giving Marcel hair styling. Marcel hair styling cost $1.75 then, and Croquignole, a spiral wave styling, was done on flat rods, with the hair wrapped in under instead of in a spiral. The cost was $1.50 at the start, but soon increased to $3 and the $5.
     Haircuts were a $1, but few people got their hair cut, since most wore it longer, and only had it trimmed when they got a permanent.
     Helen remembers visiting an orphanage, where over 75 girls and a few boys all got haircuts, with Helen using hand clippers as she cut every child's hair.
     The entire beauty course cost $165 plus room and board. Classroom teaching was not used extensively, as the students received textbooks, which they were supposed to read and learn.
    They then worked in the shop, with the school receiving the pay for the work, and only once in a while did the girls get a tip. They had to provide their own uniforms and a kit that contained scissors and other beauty equipment.
     No required hours were set, when a girl could do hair, they were able to leave. No license was required by the state until after 1930.
     Buckley remembers most of the details concerning Kenneth Christy, and his Curley Hair Cut, which had him traveling all over the U.S., and Europe promoting it. She wasn't impressed with his system, or with his boxing career, which didn't last very long. After operating in Parker, he moved to Butler where he had a beauty shop.
     She remembers customers from Callensburg, West Freedom, West Monterey, and Dutch Hills, who either walked to the train that stopped across the river, or found rides with people traveling to Parker, such as the mailmen.
     Remembering the floods that occurred in Parker, she said construction of the Kinzua Dam has prevented a lot of flooding.
     Ben Hogan, the gambler who operated a boat in the river was well known in the Parker area.  Operating  on the Armstrong County side of the river, he would move to the Clarion side when Armstrong County authorities tried to shut him down and then moved back if Clarion official approached.
     Retaining  her beauty shop license, Helen confines her actual work to a haircut now and then. Confined to a wheel chair, following a serious automobile wreck in 1991, she does her own housework and care of the beauty shop which she opened in 1935. After spending much time in a Pittsburgh Hospital, she was confined at Tack Nursing Home and not expected to be able to return home. She improved sufficiently to return home, but is still bothered by hip and back injuries.
     Helen was married to Paul Eugene Buckley, who died in 1967. They had no children. Her oldest brother, Stanley is deceased, but brothers Chauncey, Frank and Fred are still living.
     She attend the Parker United Methodist Church and is a member of St. Paul's United Church of Christ, in Sugarcreek Township.