23rd
An Introduction to Janet Schlarbaum
When Janet Schlarbaum said she was retiring after running her own beauty salon, A Touch of Class, nobody who knew her believed she was telling the truth. They believed that Janet Schlarbaum, a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and now great-grandmother, was indeed closing the doors to the salon, they just knew there was no way Mrs. Schlarbaum would ever “retire,” and time has proven them correct. Janet Schlarbaum first opened the doors to A Touch of Class in 1961, after marrying her high school boyfriend, Burt Schlarbaum and moving to the small town of White Bird, ID. With a newly minted cosmetology license and a dream to beautify the world, Janet helped Burt set up the salon, painting the walls and hanging mirrors in eager anticipation of her first customers. It was not long before Janet’s warm demeanor and skilled hands had earned her a following among the White Bird community, and before she knew it, she was expanding the salon and renting out booth space to keep up with the demand. As the 1960’s came to a close and the 1970’s neared, Burt and Janet Schlarbaum looked back on their first decade of married life fondly, having had four beautiful children and opening a successful salon and a thriving auto repair shop for Burt. By the mid 1970’s, the four Schlarbaum children were all in school, and in addition to her work at the salon, Janet Schlarbaum had a full schedule caring for the children and volunteering for many of their school and extracurricular activities. So, when Janet Schlarbaum finally did “retire” in 2004, nobody was surprised when she began taking clients in her kitchen free of charge or when she began volunteering at the women’s shelter or the food shelf, and none gave it a second thought when she joined the Red Hat Society, the bridge club, and a book club as well. Janet Schlarbaum best gives her reason for her active lifestyle herself, proclaiming: “I’ll retire when I’m dead!”
