1986
Dennis Roth
Ohio
Dennis Roth (1902-1998) began barbering at the age of 17 after nine weeks of training at Tanner’s Barber College. He started working at C.B. Fankhouser’s shop in his hometown of Archbold, Ohio. For about 16 years he went to neighboring towns within Fulton County to barber before returning to Archbold to open his own shop. In the mid 1950s, he took up styling and attended many seminars and hosted world champion hair stylists in his small shop in Archbold. He also supplemented his income from the shop by working for Roth’s Culling Service for 15 years and founded and owned the Farmland News for seven years.
Dennis maintained that he received his sense of humor from his mother and that was the basis for the two books he published—98 Ways to Increase Business for Barbers and Beauticians and Tranquilizing Gems.
In 1977, he sold his shop and became the resident barber at Sauder Farm and Craft Village in Archbold. That shop was the only licensed operating barbershop in a museum setting in the country. He put all of his efforts into telling the barber’s story at the shop. He worked with Sauder Village to establish the National Association for the Reservation and Enhancement of Primitive Barber Shop Shaving in America. In the museum shop, he gave many young men their first shave and then issued a certificate to commemorate the occasion. At age 84, when he was inducted into the Barber Hall of Fame, he was still working four days a week during the April-October season at Sauder Village. Before he passed away at age 86, he was still working there one day a week.
Dennis and his wife Ruth married in 1934 and were the parents of two daughters—Mary Lou and Carol—and the grandparents of three.