“I never considered this a job”: Libertyville salon owner retiring after 53 years in town

This story has been updated to correct a misspelling.

In 1967, when Nance Grimaldi graduated from the Ippolito School of Cosmetology in Chicago, those in the business were called hairdressers.

She likes the more modern term stylist. But at her core, Grimaldi is old school like the perms she still gives customers at Shear Fashion Beauty salon on Route 176 in Libertyville.

Grimaldi has made a career in this tidy, little place, a small business that a Dec. 13 proclamation from Mayor Donna Johnson called a part of the local economy's backbone and the glue that holds communities together.

But as of Dec. 31, Grimaldi will retire from what's been her home, business and livelihood for nearly 53 years.

“I never considered this a job,” she said on a recent afternoon at the salon. “This is where the years went by.”

The clients have meant a lot and the friendships are what made the business meaningful, she says.

The number of patrons surely is in the thousands, but just for fun, Grimaldi wishes she had a penny for every shampoo or haircut she's given. She has done the hair for kids and grandkids of some of her longtime clients.

“You get entwined with people's lives. It's the good times, the bad times, it's the deaths, the divorces,” she said.

Grimaldi said calling it a career is bittersweet, but said she will be turning 75 and it's time to hang up her clippers. The property will be offered for sale early next year.

Grimaldi followed her mother — a onetime hairdressing instructor in Chicago — into the business. After graduating in the top three in her class for hair cutting and styling at cosmetology school, she went to work at salons in River Forest then Schiller Park.

In 1969, Grimaldi, then 21, and her husband, Vito, 24, moved to Libertyville for his work. Grimaldi snared a spot at Shear Fashion, then located a little further east at 410 E. Park Ave., when a position came open due to a pregnancy on the staff.

After a few years, she and Vito would face a tough decision for a young couple that was just starting out and had bought a new home.

“The owner approached me and said, ‘I think you would be good to buy the business,'” Grimaldi recalled.

So she did, acquiring Shear Fashion in the spring of 1970.

When the lease expired two years later, a client who was in real estate connected Grimaldi with a building owner and Shear Fashion moved to its current location — a former shoe repair store — in the fall of 1972, more than 50 years ago.

“The fun part was keeping up with everything that was new,” she said.

Besides serving clients at the salon, Grimaldi was known for doing the hair of customers who were in the hospital, assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

“She honestly loves it so much,” said daughter, Marie. “It's her livelihood, it's her social life, it's her career.”

Grimaldi also has brought peace and familiarity to grieving families for about 40 years as the hairdresser for McMurrough Funeral Chapel in Libertyville.

“It's the last time the family is going to see them,” she said. “You want them to look wonderful.”