Giving Up Her Locks, With Love

By Shannon Hicks

When Barbara Wadleigh celebrated her 80th birthday a few months ago, she decided to grow her hair long for the first time in years.

It turns out one of Mrs Wadleigh’s grandchildren, Shanon Grondal, had just grown her hair out and when she went for a haircut, she had a major cut done — more than ten inches were cut off — and the girl donated her hair to Locks of Love. Inspired in part by her granddaughter, Mrs Wadleigh decided to do the same thing.

“I didn’t start with the intension of donating my hair,” Mrs Wadleigh said. “I just wanted to do something different.” But after seeing what her granddaughter did, and hearing about Locks of Love, Mrs Wadleigh decided to try growing her hair for a good reason.

The result of that effort came to a high point on February 10, when Mrs Wadleigh went to see Teresa Thompson for her major haircut. Ms Thompson is the owner of Teresa for Hair, which is located within Genesis Hair Salon in Sandy Hook.

Locks of Love is a nonprofit organization that provides hair prosthetics for disadvantaged children under the age of 18 who suffer from medical hair loss. While the organization uses hair from people of all ages (male and female donors are welcomed), donations of gray hair are not used by Locks of Love to create a wig. Instead, the Lake Worth, Fla.-based organization sells hair that is gray (or short, or otherwise unsuitable for children) at fair market value to offset the cost of manufacturing — so Mrs Wadleigh’s donation will still be put to good use.

“It’s unusual to have someone Barbara’s age do this,” said Ms Thompson. “It’s usually the kids who do this, donate their hair. Not to many adults do this.”

“I was hoping to be able to do this before Christmas,” Mrs Wadleigh said Friday afternoon. “But my birthday was in October and my hair didn’t grow fast enough to reach the ten-inch minimum before the end of December.”

Locks of Love requires that donations measure at least ten inches so that there is enough hair to put into a prosthetic base and still have enough hair to be formed into a style.

While she was waiting for her hair to reach the minimum length before she could donate it, Mrs Wadleigh had plenty of other things to do. For one thing, friends and family threw her no less than four parties to celebrate her milestone birthday.

The 80-year old also continues to enjoy playing cards, going on hikes, embroidery and knitting.

“Barb is never idle,” said friend Jayne Turner, who had accompanied Mrs Wadleigh to the beauty salon. “She’s not one to sit still.”

Mrs Wadleigh was a resident of Newtown for nearly 30 years before moving out for a few years. She moved back into town in May 2002, “and I really feel like I came home,” she said.

“So many people have commented on the color of my hair recently that I really thought someone might like to have a wig of this color,” Mrs Wadleigh said. “I’m thrilled that I’m able to do this.”