A Steel Magnolia

Miss Bernice's home was located at the top of a very steep hill. At the bottom of the hill could be found her place of work which she walked to every day of her working life, Miss B's Palace of Beauty. Miss Bernice had been cutting hair since the age of 17 when she left an abusive husband, her infant son on hip, vowing to make her own safe haven in the world and for any woman needing one as well.

Miss Bernice's shop had but one sink for washing hair and one chair for styling hair, but it had an entire wall of chairs with dryers that could be pulled down low on the head, an enveloping warmth as inviting as the advice her customers came to hear.

It was to this place I came with my mother whether our hair needed cutting or not. It was among these women, at Miss Bernice's direction, that I was allowed to be myself. Installed alongside a counter that held  an ever reached for coffee pot, was a little table that held the things I loved to make. From animals made from PlayDoh to Pom Pom Critters, to Rock People. An envelope would always be waiting my arrival filled with change from Miss Bernice's customers.

From Childhood Days to Newlywed Days to Young Mother days, Miss Bernice would provide the customers for anything my creative heart wanted to share. She also provide the tender advice I was unable to hear from my mother about the affairs of the heart. She would share with me words never spoken to another soul about her struggles as a young woman on her own. Her gentle perspective let me know my blessings were many, my troubles few.

Miss Bernice was a Steel Magnolia before there was a story or a book or a movie about the women who inhabit such a place. It is because of Miss Bernice that all women and men alike are protected from the dangerous carcinogenic fluorocarbons that use to be found in all aerosols. She was the one special woman who cut hair in a shop with only one chair for more than 40 years and who lost her battle with Eye Cancer caused from aerosol hairspray that we are all thankful for today.

Please do not pin patterns on Pinterest.

I forgot to include instructions for tail! A pipe stem is inserted between layers of felt and inserted into a small slit make on the backside of body.