Cora Lee Johnson, Springville, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, March 6, 2002: Saving the legacy tape no. 433 and 434

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CORA LEE JOHNSON MARCH 6, 2002 COR: Well, it was with-you see a lot of it now, the long irons in the beauty shop where they do the iron work like that, they were Marcel tongs. They were not what we called curling irons. BEC: Oh, whoever invented it was named Marcel. COR: That's right. He was. A Frenchman. So after mother-probably every two weeks she'd go to the beauty shop-and when we'd get like a day or two before she went, she'd let me comb her hair. Then it still had curl in the ends and I'd roll it around and comb it and roll it under. I loved to. I used to give my father scalp treatments (laughs), just as little kids, you know. I always wanted to because we had an aunt that was a hairdresser in Santa Monica, California, and about every two years or so she'd come up. She really, we called her Aunt Blanche, but she was really our Aunt Margaret's sister, but we thought she was our aunt, too. And all the time she was here she would always bring her equipment with her and mostly finger-waving. And she made the most wonderful setting lotion. It was all pink and she put it in a two-quart bottle. She made it out of some-I think it was a package of something. It would thicken up and we kept in a refrigerator (laughs). But Aunt Blanche would always finger wave our hair every night. What a vacation she had. Comes here to Utah and do hair all the time she's here. I knew Aunt Margaret took her from relative to relative, you know. I always knew I was going to be a hairdresser. BEC: Did you start your training and education right after high school for hairdressing? COR: No, I didn't. BEC: What did you do right out of high school? 19