Hanover
Schafflinger, 65, had planned to retire next year. But she pushed the date up to move to Florida to help her aging mother, Hilde Wood, who founded the business in 1966. As the day approached, she was already grieving the separation from her customers and employees.
“It’s like I’m trading one family for another,” she said through tears during an early morning interview last month at the salon. “I’ve been so close with my clients. It really has been wonderful. I’ve had a very good run here.”
Fifty years ago, she had just finished school in her native Austria. Unsure what to do next, the teenager followed the path of her mother and headed for hairdressing school.
“It was a good decision,” said Schafflinger, who started working alongside Wood in 1969 and bought the business in 1999. “Hanover’s been very good to me and my mom.”
Originally located just about across from the Dartmouth Bookstore, the salon later moved to the Mascoma Savings Bank building on South Main Street. Creating a “nice environment,” a place that’s fun yet professional, has been important to her, Schafflinger said.
On a recent foggy morning, a soft yellow light emanated from the shop, its interior walls painted an orange hue. That warm atmosphere, which echoes Schafflinger’s personality, is something clients will miss.
Marcia Wilkins found Hilde’s in the phone book 40 years ago, when she was searching for someone to shear off her long, long “hippie-era” locks. Since then, her go-to stylist has been Schafflinger.
“She’s treated me from long red hair to short gray hair,” she said. “She’s been wonderful.”
A “really talented hairdresser,” Schafflinger never lost her enthusiasm for the work, said Wilkins, who regularly fields the same question from strangers on the street: “Can you tell me where you get your hair cut?”
And she is very good with people, the Hanover resident said. “I consider her a friend, and I’ll miss her.”
In addition to cuts, the salon offered hair color, facials, ear piercing and body waxing. Once a month, a guest stylist came in to provide ethnic hair styling services.
Longtime customer Polly Hebble, 84, never went in for facials or perms. “That’s not my bag,” she said. But she appreciated being able to get appointments at Hilde’s and likes the haircuts she’s had there.
A former longtime Hanover resident who still spends a lot of time in town, Hebble called the salon “a wonderful place.”
“You do see people you’ve known forever, who are part of Hanover or the Upper Valley or someplace, which is fun,” she said. “To have it go, it’s a loss.”
Like most small business owners, Schafflinger clocked long hours; it wasn’t unusual for her to meet a client at 6:30 a.m. Recently, her arms and shoulders have felt the strain. “The blowdrying is wearing me out,” she said.
She’s seen many cuts come and go over the years, only to return again. “Been there, done that,” she said, grinning. And if certain styles never make a comeback, that’s OK with her: think beehive and “Farrah Fawcett hairdo.”
But she’ll miss cutting and coloring hair.
Hair color used to be mundane, but colors and techniques have so improved, she said. Highlighting, lowlighting, “now it’s so much fun.”
Last month, reflecting on the changes ahead, she said losing the daily interaction with her clients, some of whom had also been her mother’s customers, and “all of the wonderful people” she’s known through the business, will be hard. “I’ve had great employees. I’m going to miss all of them.”
With them in mind, she’s worked to make the transition easier.
Her six employees have found positions at other salons, many owned by former Hilde’s hairdressers, whom she’s still close to, Schafflinger said. And one by one, she’s been connecting her clients with a local stylist, based on their personalities and preferences.
“It’s important not to just walk away,” she said. “When you give a lot of care to people for many years, it’s important to not just throw them out there.”
Aimee Caruso can be reached at acaruso@vnews.com or 603-727-3210.