News Photo by Jason Ogden Alpena hair stylist Marsha Hoppe puts the final touches to a perm on her customer and friend Rose Langlois. Hoppe has been cutting Langlois’ hair, and others in the community, for 50 years.

ALPENA — Not everyone can say they’ve had the same job, let alone customers, for 50 years but Alpena hair stylist Marsha Hoppe can claim just that.

Hoppe is finishing up her 50th year as a stylist in Alpena and isn’t ready to put down her curling iron or scissors just yet. She plans to continue to serve her customers, many of whom have been going to Hoppe since began cutting hair in 1967.

She operates a small salon she built in her home in the 1970s but got her start in Posen fixing the neighbor’s hair and doing hair demonstrations in front of her English class.

Hoppe graduated high school in 1966 and when her family moved to Alpena she enrolled in the Hollywood School of Beauty. She said the year-long school was rigorous.

“You would not believe what you have to learn in beauty school, the name of the muscles in the head face and neck, and then you would work on customers and then get evaluated, it wasn’t just doing hair,” she said.

After graduation Hoppe went to work at the Red Carpet Beauty Salon, which was located in Harbortown Plaza, and got to work styling hair, building a customer base, and meeting her husband, Joe Hoppe, who worked in a nearby barber shop.

“Our bosses decided we should meet, so they would send me down to get the pop from the pop cooler at the barber shop and they would send him to get the empties,” she said.

The stylist and barber got married in 1971, bought a house and in 1976 converted the garage into a small salon for Marsha to work at home. She’s never worked at another salon since that time.

“For one reason I had a little baby daughter, she was only two and I just wanted to be home where she was,” she said.

In working from home Hoppe said she made a deal with herself that she would never repeat a word a customer has said to her in confidence. According to Hoppe one of the drawbacks of a big salon is much talking and many ears. Hoppe said barbers and stylists often act as therapists, listening to customer’s issues or letting them vent about life’s issues.

“They just always knew they could say anything they wanted here. It was between them and I,” she said.

Hoppe’s promise to her customers to keep their secrets has not changed, and neither has her prices. She said she has charged the same prices for customers for 30 years to help out customers.

“I felt that some customers couldn’t afford to pay more and I just was happy with what I was doing, and I guess money didn’t matter,” she said.

Hoppe now operates her salon two days a week. She’s not taking new customers and works with her customers and friends she’s had for decades and plans to keep working as long as she’s healthy.

She said it certainly does not feel like she has been a stylist for 50 years She said although she loves the work one of the hardest parts of her job is losing customers.

“In the last two years eight of them went to heaven, and one I had done for 50 years and she passed away, that is the hardest,” Hoppe said. “You get to know them so well.”

Hoppe said she’s cut hair for young people who end up bring their adult children in for years and years.

“I do a family — the grandma, the grandpa, the mom, the dad, and the three kids. The two kids now do not even live in Alpena, yet they won’t let anyone cut their hair but me,” she said. “It’s something to see the procession of family that comes through here.”

Jason Ogden can be reached via email at jogden@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5693. Follow Jason on Twitter @jo_alpenanews.

News Photo by Jason Ogden
Alpena hair stylist Marsha Hoppe puts the final touches to a perm on her customer and friend Rose Langlois. Hoppe has been cutting Langlois’ hair, and others in the community, for 50 years.