Tributes

By Ryan Richards: September 23, 2021 at 9:16 AM EDT When Ed Angelaccio says his father was a cut above the rest, it is no mere boast. “My father was a world-renowned hair stylist,” he claims. “I remember him saying he had done [the hair of] Miss America.” The beauty queen was Dorothy Hann, who was crowned during an unofficial pageant in 1932 in Wildwood (the sanctioned Miss America Pageant was canceled that year due to the Depression). Angelaccio removes from a briefcase a creased black-and-white photo of Hann and next to him is a dapper young man styling her hair. The Penn Valley resident pulls out another photo, also creased and worn, depicting Hann in a one-piece swimsuit. It is signed, “To my faithful hairdresser, Mr. Roy.” Although “Mr. Roy,” as his father was known in salon circles, died in 1975 at age 68, his son’s memories of his influence on the Main Line are as fresh as the scent of talcum powder. His father was born in America in 1908 but emigrated with his family to his ancestral Italy as a 1-year-old. When he returned to the United States he spoke little English and, although he was 16, was placed in first grade to learn English and other basic lessons. “I guess he could beat up anybody in his class,” jokes his son. In his teens, with only a third-grade education, his father became a skilled woodworker due to earlier training from one of his grandfathers, remembers his son. But he would soon practice another skill taught to him by his other grandfather in the old country – hair-cutting. He landed a job at John Wanamaker’s in Center City as a hairdresser and earned a reputation for cutting-edge styles. His flair for hair, in fact, landed him a Master’s Cup, a national honor, for styling during a 1939 competition at the then-named Bellevue Stratford Hotel in the city. “Dad was the ‘in’ thing as far as hairstyling was concerned back in the ’30s,” says his son. “Everybody had to go to Roy.” And that included Ruth Swain, a Wanamaker’s sales clerk from South Philly and Mr. Roy regular. “He fell in love with her,” says his son, and they married. According to Ed, at the end of the 1930s a client suggested to Roy he should open his own salon on the Main Line, where many of his customers lived and beauty shops were few. So he and Ruth packed up and moved to Narberth. “They rented a little apartment and opened up his first beauty shop,” says Angelaccio. The area at the time was sparsely developed. Albrecht’s Flowers & Nursery with its exotic facade was next door, and on the corner was Dannenhauer’s Apothecary. But Narberth was better known for its history than as a commercial hub back then. A nearby monument honors the September 1777 encampment of Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army just before the winter encampment at Valley Forge. A Quaker meetinghouse nearby once hosted William Penn. And across the street is the 1803 house owned by Joseph Price, a Quaker farmer, innkeeper, carpenter and “patriot.” Located on the 700 block of Montgomery Avenue in Narberth, Roy’s Hairstyling Salon was below the family’s apartment. (The original salon is today Meg & Company Salon.) Ruth worked with him as a manicurist and shampooer while raising her children. Ed and his older sister, Ruth, worked in the salon as children. Ed’s duties included sweeping and taking out the rollers from clients’ hair. Roy’s reputation attracted heads of industry and finance as well as socialites and politically influential women. Ed recollects the names of some of his pop’s clients, such as “Aunt Connie,” as she was known in the shop. Her last name was “Pew,” as in the founders of the Sun Oil Co. He also believes his dad’s customers included the Strawbridges of Strawbridge & Clothier fame. “It’s better than a vague assumption,” says his son. His dad also cut the hair of another well-known Main Line matron. “My dad did Grace Kelly’s mother’s hair,” he recalls. He remembers the butlers and chauffeurs who would accompany the wealthy women. And inside the wood-paneled, un-air-conditioned salon customers would be attended by Mr. Roy’s well-dressed staff (the women were required to wear heavily starched, high-collared cotton uniforms). His dad, meanwhile, always came to work in a tie, white shirt, leather shoes and heavy trousers – even in the summer. Each stylist worked in individual booths with curtains for privacy, No open chairs, says Ed, as women of stature would not want to be spotted having their hair colored or getting a permanent wave. His dad also cut men’s hair but after hours since unisex salons did not exist. In the mid- to late 1940s Ed’s parents purchased the salon and its adjoining properties, which included an arcade, for $10,000 and opened an expanded salon. Ed, a 1965 Harriton High graduate who eventually cut hair with his father, says after he returned from serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War he encouraged his parents to demolish the aging storefronts and build anew as an investment. “Every time I brought it up he would say ‘no, no, no,'” he recalls. But after initial apprehension his parents agreed and constructed a new building in 1974. His mom named it Meeting House Centre after a nearby street. He credits both his mother and father for the success of the salon. “Behind every successful man is a great woman,” relates Ed. “She had this real good business sense.” Ed, who today manages the property, likes to think that the new building spurred future growth in Narberth, a sort of commercial renaissance. “There was a lot of commercial building… and renovating going on to spruce up the area,” he says. Walking around the perimeter of Meeting House Centre, Ed, who is in his early 60s and whose Subaru sports a “NARB” license plate, points out the second-floor tile medallion featuring a wooden ship saved from the old structure, the original sidewalk he played on as a child and the 80-space parking lot that was once a dirt lot and site of his makeshift playground where he would act out cowboy and Indian wars. He nods toward a small plaque embedded in the rear exterior wall. On it states, “Dedicated to Ruth & Americo (Roy) Angelaccio”… “A Grateful Son… Never Forgets.” Originally Published: January 28, 2010 at 10:00 PM EST in Main Line Media News

Tributes

Edward David Angelaccio

June 10, 1946 - January 24, 2025