Chronicles from the Care Center: Donald Rees reflects on life of barbering

Donald Rees, 90 years old, has been a fixture in Jackson for many years as the owner and operator of Rees Family Barber Shop. He currently resides in The Villas at Jackson and can be found each morning walking two miles around the area, counting each lap he makes around the buildings by moving a penny from one pocket of his pants to the other.

Of his routine, he says, “When you make a round, a lot of times, if you walk more than six or seven, you forget what round you’re on. So every time I get to the end of where I started, I drop a coin in my pocket.”

His oldest son, Doug Rees, says since Donald's move to The Villas at Jackson, “His health has been so much better.”

After growing up in Camel, Mo., as the son of sharecroppers, Donald decided to join the Navy in 1951.

“One day, I decided there was bound to be an easier way than picking cotton, so I told Mom, ‘I’m going to go to Poplar Bluff to join the Navy,’” he says.

Donald Rees joined the Navy in 1951. There, he learned the trade of barbering while assigned to an aviation supply ship's barbershop.Submitted Photo

He was assigned to an aviation supply ship’s barbershop, where he says he got plenty of practice barbering.

“I didn’t know nothing about cutting hair, but all the guys on that ship didn’t care because nobody would see them, so I got good experience easy. I learned from my own mistakes,” he says.

When Donald was discharged from the Navy four years later, he pursued his barbering license in St. Louis. After that, he moved to Jackson with his wife, Juanita, and was, at the time, one of the youngest barbers working with Jack Hoffmeister at Hoffmeister’s Barber Shop, which became the Rees Family Barber Shop and is now Jackson Family Barber Shop. He eventually became the sole owner of Hoffmeister’s Barber Shop and became a quick study in running it.

Donald recalls one specific customer who would come in. He says of the customer, “He would never speak to any of the barbers I had. I cut his hair, and I didn’t say one word to him.”

When the time came to pay, Donald says the customer handed him seven dollars for the haircut and a $10 tip and told him the extra was for not trying to talk to him while cutting his hair.

“I used that as an example. If anyone came in for a haircut, I let him lead the conversation,” Donald says.

Donald Rees rides one of his walking horses. He became interested in walking horses during his barbering career.Submitted Photo

Donald calls himself a minuteman, able to make a split-second decision and have utter faith it’s the right call. His marriage to his wife Juanita is one example of this in his life.

“I met her on Saturday night, and the next Saturday, I married her,” he says. “It don’t take long to make up my mind, and it’s that way.”

So, of course, when he met Juanita, it only took a date to the drive-in movie theater and an introduction to his mother before they married in December 1955. Even before his career as a barber made him an avid observer of character, he considered himself a pretty good judge of it.

“She was just the kind of woman I was looking for,” he says. “I loved her so much. She was a nice lady, inside and out.”

They were together for nearly 65 years before Juanita passed away in December 2021.

Donald and Juanita had three children, Doug, Danny and Penny, and kept the barber shop in the family for decades. Daughter-in-law Carol Rees says though Donald may not refer to himself as a family man, he certainly is one, with eight grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

“He’s a man of many interests, and the kids gravitated to him because what Grandpa did was usually pretty much fun,” she says.

Those interests include a wide variety of hobbies. While he was a barber, he became interested in walking horses, and after his retirement in 1993, he spent his time training squirrel dogs and coon dogs. Despite not having any experience, he soon developed his own individual flair for training squirrel dogs.

“A lot of dogs just run around and bark when they’ve treed, but when I trained one, they’d all stand on the tree, and the squirrel would be there,” he says.

Donald Rees with one of the dogs he trained after his retirement in 1993. He says his coon dogs and squirrel dogs would stand at the tree where the squirrel would be, rather than running around barking.Submitted Photo

Donald and Juanita were also known for dancing anywhere and everywhere: the kitchen, restaurants and small music venues with no dance floor.

“They’d clear the floor,” Carol says. “It’s one of those things you’d see in a movie. Everyone would just back off and watch them dance.”

Donald still dances in his room at The Villas at Jackson, and a love of music runs in the family.

“I was raised poor as a church mouse. I didn’t have nothing,” he says. “I wanted to raise a family and made sure that they had more than I did when I grew up. And I’ve achieved that.”