Business Situation Healed

At one time the Beauty Culture School which we owned and operated became alarmingly depleted of new student enrollment.

The school needed students that wished to learn to be beauty operators. They were able to enroll the first and third Monday of each month. In the first class they were learning the theory in the morning and in the afternoon they were trained in the practical work. Of course this is what they really enjoyed doing. After they had completed the theory work and the practical work they were then put “on the floor” to take care of the customers. That was like a regular beauty shop and giving them the practical experience they needed.

We had many customers that came regularly for years which we very much appreciated.

After World War II my Mother and Father wanted to retire so they offered the school to my brother and me.

For years my mother had told me – some day you will be owning this business so she made me take the manicure course the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore year in high school and then during the next summer I had to take the full beauty culture course and get my State license as an operator to work in the beauty shop.

Since I was the only member of the family that was working there full time, I felt I really had to do something. To keep it going you really needed the customers to have people for the students to work on and keep them busy.

So out of desperation one morning I stood at the window of my office on the fourth floor of the downtown office building and the following came to me,

God only you can do what it takes to improve this situation.

God only you can make the people that have been wanting to come make up their mind to come now.

God only you can make the father give his daughter the money to come now.

God only can make the boyfriend give his girlfriend the money to come now.

God only you can make the weather not an obstacle to each of the people that want to come now.

It would be the first week in January when the next class could start. In Ohio it is pretty cold in January and the girls would be wearing white nylon uniforms which are pretty cold under their winter coats.

As I looked out over the City of Dayton, Ohio I expanded my thought to cover the small surrounding cities.

God only you can make the woman that wants to eventually have a one operator beauty shop in her home, finally decide to take the money out of her Savings Account and come now.

I knew that if we were struggling with enrollment problems the other Beauty School in town was probably suffering also.

So I said to myself, God if you supply our need I am sure you can supply theirs also.

The first part of January came around and there were quite a few people waiting in the hall to come into my office and enroll.

In fact there were more people than we had textbooks and supplies that we furnished for them in a small suitcase that they needed.

I had to ask the others to please come back in two weeks and we would be ready for them. As far as I knew they all came back to enroll.

As time went on the business increased so much that we needed to rent two other rooms to handle the overflow and also we needed to hire another instructor.

I also had to hire a young school girl to help keep track of the timekeeping sheets that each student had to turn in to the instructor at the end of each day.

My brother came in from his day job once a week at night to do the payroll and order supplies and also a lot of the business paper work.

I must say that I wasn’t the only one praying. I’m sure we all were. We were all very grateful for God’s goodness and supply.

I was also very grateful that I was always protected when taking the deposits to the bank each day.

Mariellen