There is a small building off of West Locust Street in Cabot that can be easy to miss, but many have made it a destination for decades. Ann Gilliam opened Ann’s Beauty Shop there 45 years ago, and at the end of July, she will put away her scissors and close the door for the last time.
“I think everybody knows when it’s time [to retire], and it’s time,” she said. “I’ve never wanted to stay longer than I could do the work.”
After ascending the steps or wheelchair ramp to the white building and going inside, visitors immediately face the sights of past and present — a working beauty shop surrounded by a time capsule of memories. Inside Gilliam’s shop, decorations and memorabilia from a half century of work line the walls and fill the cabinets.
Fifty years ago, Gilliam started working in Jean Ray’s Beauty Shop in Cabot before opening her own shop five years into her career. She said she learned a lot from Ray, who has been a regular customer at Ann’s Beauty Shop.
Now, photos of girls cutting off several inches to donate their hair to Locks of Love are mounted near the mirror. Gilliam’s diploma from Eaton Beauty Training Center, now called Eaton Beauty Stylist
College, in Little Rock is framed and sits on a table. Throughout the shop, photos of family members and signs with clever sayings fill in the gaps on the walls.
Gilliam grew up in Cabot, and she said she always knew she wanted to cut hair. She was the youngest of 16 children, and she said she often practiced on her sisters’ hair.
“I always loved to do hair,” she said. “I did my sisters’ hair. I loved to practice on them.”
She wasted no time in reaching her goal of being a hairdresser. Having attended beauty school while she was in 10th and 11th grades, Gilliam was already working when she graduated from Cabot High School in 1966.
“I was doing my teachers’ hair,” she said with a laugh.
Throughout the years, Gilliam has utilized her skills as a hairdresser to help others and make an impact on her community. When her younger son Billy played football at Cabot High School, she would make sure his teammates got haircuts.
“Yep, we’d shave their heads,” she said. “We did that a few times.”
As many of her clients have gotten older, Gilliam has made house calls to make sure those who couldn’t leave their homes could still get a proper haircut. She said it is worth it to work a little harder to make sure her faithful customers are satisfied, even if they cannot make it to the shop.
“I have a couple of customers who are blind,” she said. “They can’t walk up the ramp to the shop. It’s just better for them.”
Over the past 45 years that Ann’s Beauty Shop has been open, Gilliam said, she has had faithful customers who traveled from as far as Texas to have her cut their hair. Some of her customers have been going to Ann’s Beauty Shop since it opened, and Gilliam said she currently has about 40 to 50 regular customers.
“A whole lot have been with me the whole time,” she said.
Now, there’s a sign on the door announcing that Ann’s Beauty Shop will be permanently closing July 31. It is a bittersweet decision to close up shop, but Gilliam said she knew it was time to move on and spend more time on the lake and with her family.
Gilliam said she won’t have any problems staying busy during retirement, however. In addition to her soon-ending career, Gilliam serves on the Cabot City Council, participates in citywide cleanup events and helps decorate the area around City Hall for Christmas each year.
This is Gilliam’s seventh year on the City Council, and she said it has been good to make an impact on the city, as well as encourage other small businesses.
“It helps you get your name out there,” Gilliam said about small-business owners being involved in the community. “I think it’s helped other small businesses to see me involved myself. Almost all of the businesses in Cabot are small businesses.”
In her first year on the City Council, Gilliam was part of a three-person task force to start decorating for Christmas in Cabot.
“There’s three of us who decorate the city,” she said. “We started it, and we’ve gotten other people to help us. … The decorations fell on me. I enjoy that probably more than anything.”
Gilliam said the group is already in the thick of planning for Christmas 2015.
“We had our first meeting in February,” she said. “We’ll be rolling soon. We’ve got a couple more meetings before we really start to get our stuff together.”
For Gilliam, retirement also means spending more time with her grandchildren. Her youngest grandchild will turn 10 years old in October, and Gilliam said the grandson especially likes to spend time with her.
Gilliam’s husband, Robert, worked as a welder in Little Rock for 47 years. He has been retired for about seven years, and Gilliam said she is ready to join him in retirement.
“We went to Wyoming last year, and that kind of made it appealing,” she said. “Plus, our son [Bobby] is a pilot, so we can go places with him.”
While travel is a possibility in retirement, it only takes a little over an hour to get to a favorite place of Gilliam’s. When the key locks the door to Ann’s Beauty Shop on July 31, it won’t be long before Gilliam heads to Greers Ferry Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers impoundment that spans more than 40,000 acres in Van Buren and Cleburne counties and is known as a destination for various recreational activites.
“The lake is probably one of my favorite places,” she said. “Just a few more weeks, and I’ll be celebrating at the lake.”
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.