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Biography

A bit over fifty-four years ago, an aspiring nurse became a beautician and then a business owner and teacher to others. Growing up in the segregated Oakhill area, Jane Boyd Community House provided a foundation as well as fun in her youth.  After high school, she worked and saved to be able to pay her way through beauty school, an education which cost more since the local school, Paris Academy of Beauty Culture, refused to allow black students. However, while this may have seemed like a setback, the fact is, Crescent School of Beauty Culture taught her how to do the “dos” for African Americans, something she would not have learned by studying at the local cosmetology school. Since then, she has mentored many beauticians and even barbers without neglecting her children and grandchildren. Her beauty shop has expanded to help her neighborhood by supplying a barber and a clothing store. This gracious woman does not know how to be anyone other than an asset to her family and her community.

Transcript

Shawndell Young: Today is August 12, 2009. Today I will be interviewing Mrs. Freda Long. Where were you born?

Freda Long: I was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, right there in the house on 12th Avenue.

Shawndell: Where is home now?

Freda Long: Where is home now? On 38th Street.

Shawndell: How long have you lived in Iowa?

Freda Long: All my life.

Shawndell: Where did you go to school?

Freda Long: I started off at Tyler Elementary School and then I went to McKinley. I graduated from McKinley High School.

Shawndell: What did you do for entertainment when you were a kid?

Freda Long: I used to go to Jane Boyd [editor’s note: Jane Boyd Community Center]. That was our main entertainment, was to go to Jane Boyd, they had fun nights; they had parties, dances, games. They had a library were we could go and study. But my most important entertainment that I enjoyed was dancing. And I played a violin.

Shawndell: How could you say Jane Boyd has impacted your life?

Freda Long: Everything was based upon Jane Boyd for us. It really… that was my life, Jane Boyd and church.

Shawndell: Could you explain the Oakhill/Jackson Neighborhood when you were a kid?

Freda Long: Oakhill Neighborhood and Jackson was a very, very good neighborhood to live in. It was all, mostly black. At the time that I grew up, you could, my mother told us we could go no farther but one corner to another, and we couldn’t leave the block, we couldn’t go around the block. But it wasn’t a dangerous neighborhood. Oakhill was a very, very good neighborhood. You could leave your doors open and sleep on the porch. Much different than it is nowadays because they had corner grocery stores and school was close by. It was a very good neighborhood to live in. I enjoyed it.

Shawndell: So you have a beauty shop I heard, so could you explain us what that beauty shop was about like?

Freda Long: My beauty shop, I started with on 8th Avenue with Thelma Price. I worked with her for a while, and then I branched off to Lucille Farrington. She was over on 9th Street. Then I went off on my own. I started my own Beauty Shop and I been doing hair and here in Cedar Rapids off and on for 54 years. Now I am on 12th Avenue, Southeast. I don’t have any beauticians now but me, but I had beauticians working for me, and I enjoyed it. The different ones, they tell me that I have a beauty shop that takes and trains kids that come out of school and then they branch off to other shops. Now I have barbers. I have a barber up there and I have a young man selling clothes in the back. But doing hair, I have enjoyed it for my 54 years of doing hair. When I started in Des Moines, I went to Des Moines to Crescent Beauty School, because Paris Academy didn’t want any blacks in Paris Academy. So they told me I had to find a school to go to. So I found Crescent Beauty School in Des Moines. And I had to go up there. At that time I paid $150.00 to go to Beauty School.

Shawndell: Who ran that?

Freda Long: Pauline Humphrey.

Shawndell: Why did you choose to get involved in hair?

Freda Long: Because I came from a large family. I really wanted to be a nurse, but I came from a large family and I was the youngest girl of my family. In order to get some sort of education, I had to try to do the best I could and paying my way through school. So, I decided the quickest way to get a trade was to go to beauty school which only took 2100 hours and $150.00. And so I thought I could do it here, but it cost a little bit more by going to Des Moines, staying in the dormitory there. When I went to Des Moines and stayed in the dormitory there, I paid $4.00 a week for my room and board. So it was much cheaper. But I started doing hair by playing in people’s hair. I loved to comb my mother’s hair, my sister’s hair, and I loved to play in their hair. So I says, “Well, maybe this is the best way for me to go and the cheapest way.” And so I went that way because I really wanted to stay home and go to school, but since Paris didn’t want any blacks in their school, I had to find a black school to go to and the closest one to go to, so I went to Des Moines.

Shawndell: What were you doing before this?

Freda Long: Before I went to school?

Shawndell: Um-hum.

Freda Long: I worked at Armstrong’s after I graduated from high school. I decided I wanted to make enough money to go to school. So I worked at Armstrong’s in the Coat’s Department and saved my money and then that’s how I went to school.

Shawndell: How did your family feel about you getting involved in beauty?

Freda Long: My family enjoyed and loved the idea of me going to beauty school being able to pick up on some kind of trade. So they all were very much enthused about me going to beauty school.

Shawndell: And you did Little Richard’s hair, I heard. Can you explain to us a little bit about that?

Freda Long: When I was in Des Moines, Little Richard used to come up there for concerts. They used to have a lot of concerts in Des Moines and they brought all these well known people. So they would all come to the beauty school to get their hair done. And every time Little Richard came he would ask for me and I would do his hair. And Little Richard then wore a “poodle” a curl all over his head. At that time they call it a “poodle curl”. And he wore that. And so he liked the way I did it, and every time he would come to Des Moines, he would come to the beauty school and ask me to do his hair. Also, I did [Nat] King Cole I worked with King Cole’s sister in Lake Forest, Illinois, in Chicago. I was able to do several stars; music stars’ hair. And I enjoyed it.

Shawndell: If you could change anything about your life, what would it be?

Freda Long: Anything about my, what would I do? I have had a very interesting life. I don’t think, my life seems to be more of taking care of people, sick people from way back. I have took care of quite a few sick people to the place where I think I would change it, by being able to do more for myself. And I don’t know if I would be a beautician, because that has really gotten me, oh I don’t know, I tell my granddaughter, she wants to be a beautician and I tell her, “No you don’t want to be a beautician.” Because I think I would rather be a person that got paid on the job, not dependent on people. So I probably would have went on into trying to become a nurse and that is taking care of sick people again. But I guess that’s what I’m on earth for is to take care of sick people. Maybe I wouldn’t, maybe that’s where I would go is to be a nurse more so than a beautician, ’cause right now I do hair up at the nursing home where my husband is. I go on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I do nothing but senior citizens now. Maybe that’s why I was put here to take care of sick people. So I would probably go ahead and be a nurse. I would probably change in that way.

Shawndell: What would you say that you would like to, for all of us, to remember from this interview?

Freda Long: That I was a beautician here in Cedar Rapids for fifty-four years, so far, up until 2009. I will probably be a beautician until I die. What would I want you to remember? With life you’ve got to, I pray every day. I do and I ask God to carry me through everything that I do. I have a lot of faith and a lot of trust in Him. I would tell a lot of people to put your trust in God and let Him lead you, ’cause that’s what I have done. And that’s what I would want anybody to remember. All that I have been through in my life, He has carried me through. Because it’s been through prayer and it’s been through having faith in him. So I would tell anybody, anything that you do in life, being a nurse, doctor, beautician, or whatever that’s the onliest thing that is going to carry you through life, is your prayer and faith.

Shawndell: Well thank you for letting me interview you today.