Store owner continues to takes clients after closing salon

ST. LOUIS -- Martha Dille walked with a colorful cane through one of the most recognizable entryways in St. Louis.

The front of Gringo Jones Imports is pleasantly bizarre. A 17-foot multicolored giraffe statue and stone-carved knights, yetis and dragons spill out to the sidewalk, turning heads near the corner of Shaw Boulevard and Vandeventer Avenue, not far from the Missouri Botanical Garden.

But 88-year-old Dille isn't here to shop. She's due for a blow dry and a curl.

Leon Jones, 70, founder and owner of Gringo Jones, has been doing Dille's hair for nearly 50 years. Their weekly shampoo-set appointment began in the early '70s when Jones owned a salon in Webster Groves.

Though he closed that shop 23 years ago to open Gringo Jones, he's never had it in him to turn away a few of his most loyal hair clients, like Dille.

Today, his store is a local institution: A 10,000-square-foot labyrinth of rooms filled with Mexican pottery, antiques and oddities, with many loyal customers.

Most don't realize the old salon chair tucked away in a corner of the shop actually gets used.

On a recent morning, Jones opened the store early for Dille, a distinguished woman from Ladue with -- at the moment -- slightly flat hair. Dille is always sure to bring her own purple can of Aqua Net for when Jones runs low.

"And how are you today, Martha?" said Jones.

"Oh, I'm OK," she replied.

"OK is pretty good some days."

"OK is better than nothing!" Dille said.

The friends laugh and wind their way through the crowded shop to start their familiar routine.

When he met Martha Dille, Leon Jones was in his early 20s, a young business owner in a new city.

He grew up in tiny Iuka, Illinois, population 471, but went to New York for beauty school and decided small-town life wasn't for him. He moved in with an aunt in St. Louis after graduation and opened his salon, Mane Country, in Webster Groves in 1971.

When Dille came in for an appointment, she took to the witty stylist right away.

Dille grew up in the Central West End and had an extensive social network in St. Louis as the wife of energy executive Earl Dille. Her husband eventually became president and CEO of Union Electric, now known as Ameren.

Dille rarely missed her weekly hair appointment with Jones.

"She always kept me in line," Jones said. "Martha loves order. She'd ask: Have you made your will yet? Is your insurance paid?"

Jones said he never had a passion for styling hair, but loved the relationships and banter he built with clients like Dille.

"I got closer to my customers than most of my family," he said. "My family is 90 miles away, but then I would see people like Martha every week for her shampoo-set."

Today, Jones still sees a few other clients on occasion. He still cuts the hair of an organist, a priest, a dermatologist and a therapist, though all are retired now.

But Dille is the most consistent. She comes now whenever one of her two sons or her home health aide can drive her.

"People think I'm nuts," she said. "But I would never think of going anywhere else. Nobody does a better curl, you know."

Jones laughs.

"Here comes another Martha commercial."

On the day of her recent appointment, Dille wears a smart Oxford shirt with a ring on a delicate chain around her neck. The ring was a gift from her husband, who died in January after 66 years of marriage.

Dille sits down in the salon chair next to a 6-foot Dia de los Muertos skeleton. With practiced hands, Jones blow dries her hair before working his curling iron in rows.

He sprays clouds of Aqua Net as he asks about Dille's children.

"Everyone is moving around doing stuff," she said. "As long as it doesn't involve me, I'm fine with it."

In just a few minutes, Jones brushes out the curls into soft waves.

"You look human and everything now!" he said.

"Oh good grief!" Dille laughed.

It's not clear how much longer these appointments will last. Jones is beginning to think about selling the shop and retiring.

"I'm 70 now, so it's time to be a little realistic. Not terribly though," he said. "I'm always saying on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, it's for sale. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, it's not. And on Sunday I can't decide. It's been my life for almost a quarter of a century, so ... it's hard."

For now, though, Jones is looking forward to a shipment of two life-size Clydesdale statues, continuing to hunt for unusual goods and doing hair for Dille whenever she calls.

When the styling is done, she walks with her cane -- which she bought at Gringo Jones, of course -- out of the store. They pass a griffin, a giant rooster and a group of Virgin Marys as Dille waves goodbye to one of her oldest friends, her hair perfectly curled.