The Matlock family moved to the Sand hills of Hollis in the mid 20s to farm. As far as I can tell they were neighbors of the Ward family. I say this because of all the stories I have heard of the boys growing up together. The Matlock family consisted of James Buchanan and Francis, mother and father. The kids were Jim, Jack, May, Vernie, Raymond, and Margie. The Wards I have heard of were Carl, Neil, and Sandy. During the time the Matlocks lived on the farm, my dad Jim got to cutting all the neighbor kids hair on the front porch.
In either the late 20s or the early 30s the family moved back to the Ft. Worth area, Springtown, I think. Dad liked the Hollis area so he decided to pursue a career of barbering there. He enrolled in a barber college in Ft. Worth, after three days of school he decided he knew about as much about cutting hair as they could teach him. At this time you didn't have to have licenses to cut hair, so he moved back to Hollis.
John DeLamar had a barber shop in the building just West of Oscar Bryant's filling station. This is where dad got his first job as a barber.
As a general rule when a new barber moves into a shop they give him the first chair, this is since he doesn't have a cliental he can catch some of the walk ins. In the attached picture, of the Delamar Barber shop, you will see that my dad has the first chair, and this would date the picture as being in the late 20s or early 30s.
After a few years Dad and another barber bought out the shop. I am not sure who the other barber was but I think it was either Shorty Bryant or Arthur Bilderback. This arraignment lasted a few years and Dad bought out the shop as a single owner. During the early years of World War II, Dad moved the shop to the next block West. This building was owned by the Aboussies. This building had a petition wall and George Forducey had a shoe shop in the half next to the Rexall Drug store, and Dad had the East half of the building. Dad had a barber shop in Hollis for 56 years, and this is the location he was in when he retired. When he retired he sold the fixtures to Jim Hubanks, another Hollis barber.
Dad was a very private person and when he sold the shop he didn't even tell me or my sister that he was going to sell the shop. I would have given him more for just one of the barber chairs than he got for all the fixtures. But that was just the way he was.
Another barber shop story:
After a five tour in the U.S. Air Force, I returned to Hollis to barber. One of the first customers to come in the shop was Raymond McCury. Dad was working on a customer so I stood up behind my chair and looked eager to work. Raymond told me "Jimmy I would let you cut my hair, but your father is my barber". Then he told me of his first town bought haircut. He said he was a young man that had never had a haircut by anyone but his mother. One Saturday night he had a date and wanted to get a store bought haircut. He tied his horse up in front of the DeLamar barbershop, which was full, just as Mr. DeLamar placed a closed sign in the window. Dad opened the door and told him that if he cared to wait, come on inside and he would cut his hair. Raymond told me that, with the exception when he was in California for several months, and his hair got so long he just had to have a haircut, no other barber had cut his hair. Raymond passed away before my dad retired with having only one haircut that Dad didn't do.
