Matriarch set the course for hairstyling dynasty
When Elisabetta Mitrano stepped off the jetliner at Logan Airport in 1972, dual emotions tugged at her spirit. She was saddened, having left two sons behind in their hometown in Gaeta, Italy, a medieval port city. But the American Dream was in reach, after a 20-year wait for their visas. She was seven months pregnant with her ninth child.
Encouraged by her sister-in-law who worked at a local beauty salon, she earnestly came to believe that the skill to lift them out of poverty was hairdressing. Men would always need haircuts, and women always liked to look stylish.
“When she came here, she saw gold,’’ recalled Linda, her only American-born child.
Today, all nine Mitrano children are licensed hairdressers, forming a hairstyling dynasty. Mitranos operate hair salons in three communities: Mitrano Hairmates in Stoneham is owned and operated by George, Joseph, and Michael; Dante Mitrano operates Woburn Hairmate Salon, which also specializes in wigs for style and for medical hair loss, in Woburn; and Adele and Matthew are partners at Mitrano Hair Salon in Wakefield.
On busy days, Hairmates in Stoneham is a hive of activity. Up to fifteen stylists at thirteen mirrored stations transform clients’ desires into state-of-the art hairstyles. Four washing sinks and four full-head dryers allow a simultaneous workflow in this commodious 2,400-square-foot workspace, brightly lit by daylight and overhead track lighting. Style guides explain the latest offerings: the Brazilian Keratin treatment and a hair removal process.
“Three years after I came from Italy,’’ said George Mitrano, “I opened the first salon. There’s nothing better than being a hairdresser. You can talk to women all day long.’’
The family jokester, George displayed his new T-shirt emblazoned with his latest title. “I’m the ‘Hair Whisperer.’ . . . Everybody was a whisperer, the horse whisperer, the ghost whisperer, the dog whisperer. I said what we need is a hair whisperer, so I became one.
“I’m the one to tell you what’s wrong with your hair. If your hair doesn’t behave a certain way, I’ll tell you why. I’m the answer to all your hair questions.’’
In this highly localized business, competition among the siblings appears to be nonexistent. Matthew said, “Clients come to you because they like your personality. You attract what you are.’’
He dislikes the long hours, working on Saturday, and the sore feet from constantly standing, but says he has no regrets.
None of the siblings spoke English when they settled in Somerville in the 1970s while their father, Stefano, a farmer back in Italy, worked as a janitor at Tufts University. As each son and daughter came of age, their mother insisted that they learn hairdressing.
“She knew she could not send us to college, so, one by one, we went to hairdressing school,’’ Adele said. “We wouldn’t think of complaining or saying we wouldn’t go. She thought it was a good way of making a living, and we just did it.’’
Joseph was the first to embrace hairstyling, studying part time at night school in Cambridge at D’Anthony School of Cosmetology, while holding down a day job at a Simmons mattress factory in Medford.
“Every day is a different challenge,’’ he said about his work. “It’s never boring. There are always problems to be solved.’’
Dante and George delayed emigrating, traveling to the United States a few years after their mother did. Dante was serving out a three-year contract as a trooper with the Carabinieri, the national police force.
“Everything I learned in 30 years, I left behind,’’ Dante said. “It was like being reborn. You have to relearn everything.’’
George left a seafarer’s life in the merchant marine and relocated to the United States in 1974 and, encouraged by his father and mother, soon learned hairdressing.
Matthew earned membership in the National Honor Society and graduated from St. Clement High School in Medford, but his dreams of becoming a pilot quickly narrowed when his mother told him, “I enrolled you in hairdressing school,’’ he recalled. He worked with Dante in Woburn for fifteen years before opening his own salon with Adele in Wakefield.
Stefano Mitrano died in 1990. Within a year, Elisabetta opened Nonna’s-to-Go, an Italian catering service and takeout shop a few doors away in Stoneham. Mary joined the new family business while helping out at other salons. The shop was open nine years.
Mary developed allergic reactions to the chemicals, and she was forced to curtail styling. She works washing hair at Mitrano’s in Wakefield and as a party planner with Linda at Sugar Plum Parties. “I’m always the one they call when they need help.’’
Another daughter, Patricia, studied hairdressing in Malden, but the pungent smells of chemicals used in permanents made her sick. Though licensed as a hairdresser, she is a manager of a Dunkin’ Donuts in Braintree.
When it came time for Linda to make a career choice, she felt compelled not to break with tradition.
Eventually she branched out into a new venture, but can still practice hairstyling at Sugar Plum Parties, which won the “Most Creative Concept in Massachusetts’’ business award in 2008 from the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. To her young clients’ mothers, having their little girls dress up and get an updo is “like a big prom night,’’ she said.
“None of us has ever been unemployed, we’ve never had to look for a job, and we’ve never gone for a job interview,’’ said Adele. “We’ve done pretty well. We own our own homes. We have our businesses. I couldn’t ask for a better job than I have now. And we’re all pretty happy.’’
