Margaret Booth, 65, hairdresser
DETROIT NATIVE WIELDED CLIPPERS IN WILLOW GLEN AREA FOR 35 YEARS
By Sue Chenoweth
Mercury News
Article Launched: 04/08/2007 01:56:35 AM PDT



Margaret "Peggy" Booth, a Willow Glen hairdresser for more than 35 years, touched three generations with her clippers, kindness and sense of humor.

Mrs. Booth opened "Peggy's Willow Glen Beauty Salon" in 1975. When the long, narrow brick structure sandwiched between doughnut and vitamin shops closed in the early '90s for retrofitting, loyal clients made a beeline for her new space at Ronald's Coiffeurs.

"Every time I sat in her chair, Peggy made me feel like a princess," remembered Kristin Quintin, whose mother and 8-month-old daughter also were clients.

"Peggy gave Emma her first haircut in early February," Quintin said. The ailing Mrs. Booth was in bed when she gently combed the infant's cowlick and gave it a snip.

On March 18, 2 1/2 years after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, Mrs. Booth died at her home in San Jose's Blossom Valley. The day before, Mrs. Booth had celebrated her 65th birthday.

For more than three decades, Mrs. Booth carefully permed, colored and cut legions of regulars, from "hip, slick, cool" clients to "blue-haired ladies," her son Sean Mulcaster said.

His mother also kept him "trimmed like a poodle." And she deftly applied her skills on Quintin's mother, Lois Marlow, and her thin, fine hair.

"I haven't seen anyone else in the USA since - except for one time in Clayton, Mo.," Marlow said. "I loved Peggy," she said, acknowledging that she wasn't the only one. "If you were Peggy's


client, you were family."
Mrs. Booth and her first husband "didn't have two dimes to rub together" when they left her native Detroit in the mid-1960s and headed for Southern California. Her wishful, close-knit Irish family gave them six months in the Golden State.

For six years, the young family lived in the shadow of Disneyland's Matterhorn. In 1972, they moved to San Jose. By then, Mrs. Booth was a certified beautician and her first marriage was headed for divorce. The year the divorce was final, 1977, she met Herschel Booth.

The couple married in Oct. 7, 1979 - despite the clumsy English aviator joke he tried to impress her with at their first meeting. The joke "popped up" on occasion throughout their 29-year marriage. And in time, Herschel Booth began to call her his beloved "Pollyanna Peg."

Together the Booths liked playing golf at Ridgemark Golf Club and Country Club in Hollister and working in their yard. They also enjoyed dinner with friends and shopping for Belleck Irish pottery.

"I used to tease Peg," her husband said, "that the huge china cabinet holding her collection was the big Buick we never bought."

His wife was a fastidious homemaker, Herschel Booth said. And very organized.

"Once grown, we started having holidays there," Sean Mulcaster said. "When we arrived, the house was always filled with the aroma of our holiday feast and Mom would be sitting on the couch doing the New York Times crossword puzzle."

The day Mrs. Booth died, her breath was labored as she spoke to her family and asked them to stay close and in each other's lives no matter what, Mulcaster said.

"We were bawling our eyes out, then Mom looked up and said: `Did you guys get something to eat?'"

Next thing, everyone was howling, Mulcaster said. That's when he turned to his mother and quipped: "Oh, so now you're going to host this, too?"




MARGARET "PEGGY" BOOTH

Born: March 17, 1942, in Detroit

Died: March 18, 2007, in San Jose

Survived by: Her husband, Herschel Booth of San Jose; her sons Sean and Christopher Mulcaster, both of San Jose; her daughter, Jennifer Mulcaster of Mountain View; her brothers Philip Johnston of Warren, Mich., and Patrick Johnston of Spokane, Wash.; and her granddaughter, Abigail Porter.

Services: Memorial gathering is scheduled for noon to 3 p.m. Friday at Kirigin Cellars, 11550 Watsonville Road, Gilroy.

Memorial: In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to Forbes Norris MDA/ALS Research Center, 2324 Sacramento St., San Francisco, Calif. 94115.



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