Salon customers reminisce

By Millie Diaz

Staff Writer

Mac Jimenez, owner of Mac’s Beauty Salon in Edna, and stylists Jane Lopez and Judy Keith have cleaned their curling irons, hung up their teasing combs and swept up shop to close the business after nearly 60 years.

Doctors diagnosed Mac with stage four atypical large B cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma in her bone marrow in June, and shortly afterward, Mac lost her husband, Basilio.

Mac is currently in Cypress with Joanne, her daughter, to be nearer to MD Anderson while going through a chemotherapeutic regimen her doctors say should be a cure. Mac said she’s physically on the weak side, and she misses being at home.

She reminisced about opening her first salon in 1961 before she married Basilio. “I had one shampoo bowl with three styling chairs,” Mac said. “Then Basilio constructed the salon we’re in now with the attached garage for his business.”

Mac assumed it was mere arthritis in her joints that ached when she did hair, and sometimes it hurt for her to lift her arms for long periods of time.

Jane Lopez recalls a day when she had to lift Mac’s arms for her in order to do her daily duties. “I’ve worked with Mac for 48 years, and she lived and breathed for her family and the salon. Even when her arms wouldn’t move the way she wanted, she still pushed herself, and kept working,” Lopez said. “She’s had so many loyal customers who didn’t know where they were going to get their hair done once we completely closed up the shop.”

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