Need a Haircut, Anyone?

Fellow Manitobans - are you needing a haircut as much as I am since being in Code Red for so many weeks? Today’s blog post will reminisce on the barbers of Reston. Additions and corrections are always welcome!

Postcard from the Prairie Towns website

Harry Lusk ran the first barber shop on Main Street and also a Mr. Paul in the Wilcox Building. It is pictured above in the middle of the street scene with the long staircase up the side. The building was built just before the turn of the century for grocery and dry goods, before the construction of the G. S. Munro stone store to the north.  It later housed a bakery, ice cream parlour and barber business. Do you see what I think is the barber pole out front?  Mr. Paul left for points further west in 1910 and the Berry Barber reign in Reston began. 

Two brothers to jeweler and hardware merchant E.H. Berry,  Lewis until 1916 and later Harcourt Berry took over barbering in Reston in the Wilcox Building.  Harcourt married Mary Bernice Hinton in 1915.  They had two sons, Edwin Harcourt and Boyd Hinton.

Another postcard from the Prairie Towns website with the barber shop building identified as a Liberal Committee Room with a better image of the barber pole in front - about 1911

The barber shop had a public bath tub in the back for harvesters and railroad men who were only in Reston for a short time.  Barbers cut hair and shaved from their chairs which also served as a social gathering place for the men of the village and beyond.  A punch card was purchased for a dollar and it was good for 6 shaves.  Hired to help barber in the early years include Blake Bolton/Boulton (not directly related to our Boultons but from the same area of Ontario) in 1916-1920. The 1921 census shows Blake as the Wawanesa town barber living with his wife Emma (Bently) and two young children.  

In 1934, fire destroyed the barber shop when a fire began in the bake shop. Harcourt Berry was determined to carry on and he decided to move a building from Pipestone for his new barber shop.  It had been a Royal Bank built in 1922 and moving it the 7 miles would have been no small feat even with four 15-30 International tractors.  It carried its own wild west  legend with it  - a bullet hole from law enforcement gun.  Apparently a bank robbery gone wrong which I will have to dig more into.  I imagine the bullet hole and story were to be shared with new patrons with pride!

Harcourt Berry remodeled the interior and an office was partitioned off on the north side for a dentist.  Dr. Haughton carried on dentistry there for many years. This was later used as a section of the shop for a ladies beauty parlour. Harcourt continued his trade in Reston for a total of 56 years.  Harcourt’s son Boyd carried on the family barbering tradition for an amazing 56 years as well, retiring on August 6, 1994. 

Hotel owner Richard V Cusack also manned a barber chair in his building along with Shorty Long and Fred Busby. Randy remembers Elmer Duncan cutting his hair in the 60’s and 70’s in a barber  chair in the basement of his home where Lisa Martin lives today on 5th Street. 

 

Picture from McKee Archives at Brandon University - taken October 1964

Boyd Berry began working with his father in 1936.  He married Eleanor Marion Robertson in 1942 and they had 3 children -  Frederick Harcourt, Darlene and Lorelei. Boyd and Eleanor also farmed south of Reston. Lorelei and her husband Rick Bloomer live in the beautiful brick home on the corner of First Avenue and Fourth Street which was her grandfather Harcourt's home starting in 1935.  Two pool tables were moved across from the Reston House Hotel to create Berry's Barber and Billiards.  Boyd sold the property in 1985 and the building was demolished in 1994 to make room for the new Credit Union building.  The clippings used on today's post come from a collection belonging to Verna and John Olenick.  Men's haircuts in Reston have capably been carried out by stylists/hairdressers/beauty shops that will need to wait for another post.  Just as my hair waits for another two weeks. 😒