Barber Who Has Been Cutting Hair Since 1920s Closes Shop

NEWS PHOTO • JACK STUBBS

If Andy Varani wants a cut from Dominick Dascola, he'll have to take his business elsewhere. After closing his own shop, Dascola will be giving haircuts at his brother's shop.

Barber who has been cutting hair since 1920s closes shop

By WILLIAM B.TREML
NEWS STAFF REPORTER

An era is ending in a west side shopping center.

Dominic Dascola, with 60 years behind him as a barber, is closing his shop in the Maple Village Shopping Center.

“It’s time to slow down. They tell me it isn’t good to come to a complete halt from work so I’ll help out a little at my son’s shop on E. Liberty Street. But for me the long days are over. It’s been a good job. I met a lot of nice people over the years,” Dascola says.

Born into a family of barbers, Dom Dacola came to Ann Arbor from the wilds of Iron Mountain in the Upper Peninsula when Herbert Hoover was president of the United States. Michigan football teams under the late Harry Kipke were sweeping the opposition, putting together back-to-back national championships. And hamburger was 10 cents a pound.

“I came down here a real country boy from the UP,” Dascola recalled. “I’d been barbering since I was 14. My brother Patsy taught me. And our brother, Ernest, too. Today Patsy’s got more than 70 years in the trade. I enrolled as a freshman at the University and began barbering at a shop in the Michigan Union in my spare time.

“The price of haircuts was 50 cents. We didn’t make much money, but in those days you didn’t need a lot. I can remember Eck Stanger (the late chief photographer for the Ann Arbor News) always buying me a milkshake after he paid for his haircut. That was his little custom. I worked all the time I was in college, through bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I always liked meeting people.”

At one point Dominic Dascola owned and operated three Ann Arbor barber shops. Brother Ernest took over one in the Arborland Shopping Center on Washtenaw Avenue, then closed it in 1983 and moved in to the Maple Village shop with Dominic. Later the U-M Barbers shop at 615 E. Liberty Street was sold to Dominic’s son, Robert, who still operates it.

That was the first shop Dominic owned.

“It was the ‘Groomwell Beauty and Barber Shop’ when I bought it. Tom Harmon was playing for Michigan in those days. We remodeled it a couple of times but it’s pretty much the same as it was in the late ’30s. Now, going back there will be like going home. Ernie and I will be working for Robert. Maybe we’ll meet some old friends again, ” he says.

As the barbershop interview ended, Dom Dascola smoothed down a final cowlick on three-year-old Andrew Varani.

"There you are, young man. All done,” he told the tow-headed tot who jumped down from the chair and headed for his mother, Barbara.

Dascola smiled, paused for a moment while he held the customer apron, watching mother and son. The old barber from Iron Mountain may have been thinking of Eck Stanger and the 50-cent haircuts and the complementary milkshakes at the Michigan Union.

When Harry Kipke was winning them all.