Ursula Schweiger-Turner earned her cosmetology license at 18 in communist East Germany and escaped to West Germany in 1956, leaving her parents and eventually making it to the U.S. She finally settled in Woodland Hills where she has been styling hair for women ever since.
At 87, she remains on the job.
“I always liked to play with hair in East Germany, and when everybody got out of school it was either get a job (or join) the military,” Schweiger-Turner said.
She isn’t sure why some of her clients from six decades ago still come to her in the San Fernando Valley, but she’s happy they do because she doesn’t plan to retire.
“Every time I say I’m thinking of retiring, my clients have a heart attack,” said the beloved beautician.
Lidia Ortiz, the owner of Headline Salon where she performs her magic, said if Schweiger-Turner retires she will “die.”
“She can’t retire,” Ortiz said. “She has to continue working.”
Schweiger-Turner wonders if her family genes contribute to her long life — one of her sisters was 97 when she died last March in Frankfurt.
But it could possibly be her lifestyle.
“I don’t exercise, but I clean my house,” she said, adding she knits to keep busy and has volunteered at retirement home for the past few decades.
Susan Grossman, a pastry chef from Moorpark, is Schweiger-Turner’s weekly 10 a.m. Thursday client.
When Grossman moved to Woodland Hills from New Jersey 42 years ago, a mutual acquaintance suggested she try Schweiger-Turner.
“She does a good job (with my hair),” Grossman said. “(Coming every week) is a luxury for me.”
Grossman said Schweiger-Turner even took care of her parents until they passed away.
“Ursula went to Burbank to take care of my mom, who was in assistant living,” Grossman recalled. “When she cut my dad’s hair he would come into the salon and bring Ursula a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce.”
Through the many years the two women developed a deep friendship outside the salon.
“I was scared to death of (Grossman) because she had very long hair and she had a big flip. I was setting her hair then, and now it is very short,” Schweiger-Turner remembers. “But she stayed with me and when I got married, she took photos, made me a beautiful album.”
Looking back, she notes, “Most of my clients stayed with me 30, 40 years and I have another one, she comes Saturday (at noon) and I have been doing her hair almost 50 years. I think she’s 85.”
If there’s one thing that brings her customers back, it might be the laughter. Woodland Hills resident Teresa Dahlquist has been coming back to Ursula for 62 years.
“We went through a divorce together and that made us best friends,” Dahlquist explained. “We love to have fun. Ursula has a great personality. She’s an entertainer and she makes you laugh.”