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Freda Rodney: passionate about wigs
oped alopecia, a condition that causes hair to fall out, wigs were terribly expensive, difficult to get, sold by a man, and ordered from a catalogue. “When it finally came it looked like old lady’s hair,”she recalls.“There was no help. They just gave you this thing.” So she and her mother washed, cut and restyled the wig, making it more age-ap- propriate for a teen. That was the beginning of Rodney’s passion for helping women with hair loss look better, and increase their self-esteem. So when she started hairdressing school she learned a lot about wigs. “At the time I thought that, if I could own a beauty salon, I would carry lots of wigs so women could come in and try them and be shown how to care for them. This is the support women wearing wigs need.” She eventually married and followed her husband from place to place. She worked as a popular hairdresser wherever she lived, including working for 22 years at the Tow- ers department store. Then Zeller’s closed and took Towers with it. “We only had the cheapest products to work with, but I taught the girls how to add simple things to make products work better and how to make clients look their best with them.” In 1990, she opened her own shop on St. Laurent Blvd in Ottawa, Freda’s Family Hair- dressing, with the help of her husband, Pe- ter. For years, much of her volunteer work had been with programs for cancer pa- tients, including Look Good Feel Better. But
years before those programs had started she was doing her own part. She learned how treatments affect skin tone, and that warm-coloured wigs with a bit of red or auburn in them could minimize that effect. When women saw that they looked better they started to feel better. “You could tell it helped their self-esteem to look nice.” At first she hesitated about having a large inventory on hand, but Peter gave her the money and said, “Look, it’s what you need, go get them.” Freda trained her staff to help the client objectively. “Clients’ friends tend to suggest what they like themselves.” In October, Rodney, was nominated by Senator Anne Cools, a patron of Freda’s hair salon, for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. Senator Cools described Freda as a “little lady with a big heart”, saying “if you see the time she takes with these women, assuring them there’s life after baldness…” Freda said when she got the phone call about the nomination her eyes filled up. “Me?” she said, “Are you sure?” The ceremony was held in the Senate Chamber. The other recipients were also service people heavily involved in charity work as part of their careers. Says Rodney, “I felt so privileged to be among them.” She intends to display all the evening’s memorabilia in a shadow box. She is pleased that wigs are now so much better, more affordable and accepted. “Wigs are beautiful accessories and there’s noth- ing shameful about wearing them.”
CANDICE VETTER candice.vetter@eap.on.ca
Freda Rodney, of Embrun, is obviously a very caring woman who radiates warmth and who listens closely and compassion- ately. She also practices a very compassionate profession. As a hairdresser, she takes a spe- cial interest in wigs for women and girls suf- fering hair loss. When Freda’s 17-year-old sister devel-
Photo Candice Vetter
Freda Rodney of Embrun was awarded a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal at a cer- emony in the Senate Chambers on Parlia- ment Hill on Friday, October 26, in recog- nition of her passion to help women feel better. She is shown here with the items she received that evening. The medal is in the box at the lower left. The two older coins shown are her husband’s Corona- tion coins that he received as a boy in 1953.
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