Memories of a Burke County legend: Burl Sain dies at age 93

Burl Sain, a barber in downtown Morganton for more than 60 years and a friend and counselor to many, died Tuesday at the age of 93.

His son Tommy was holding Burl’s hand as he passed and Tommy had just finished reading to his father the passage in Acts, Chapter 7, describing the death of Stephen.

That passage concludes with, “While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.”

“Dad went peacefully as soon as I finished that last sentence,” Tommy told me on Wednesday morning. “He went to sleep also.”

I was one of the many who counted Burl as a friend. Burl was my barber for decades, from my mid-20s, when I actually had a full head of hair, to my late 50s, when most of that hair had disappeared.

I loved sitting in Burl’s chair, loved listening to his stories, loved the sage counsel he sometimes provided me back when I was a young and inexperienced newspaper editor.

Two years ago, when The Paper was in its infancy, I had the honor of sitting down with Burl in his home and listening as he recounted his life’s story. Here is what I wrote after that interview:

The newspaper ad from 1960 tells quite the story.

The advertisement is announcing that Sain’s Barber Shop has moved to a new location — down the stairs, beneath the Cornwell Drug Company, at the corner of Union and Sterling streets in downtown Morganton.

“Meet Our Barbers …” the message declares, and underneath are photos of owner Burl Sain and his three employees, Vaughn Baldwin, Floyd Harris, and Charlie Tate.

“We offer you,” the ad goes on, “four courteous barbers, prompt efficient service, television, and air conditioning.”

Also, the business motto: “You owe it to yourself to look your neatest.”

The listed telephone number for the new shop: HE7-0664.

At the time that ad appeared, in the spring before John Kennedy was elected president, Burl had already been barbering for six years in downtown Morganton.

By the time he hung up his clippers and his scissors for good — four or five years ago, he can’t rightly remember — he had barbered for well over 60 years and cut literally a quarter million heads of hair.

Over those decades, he went from being “a barber” in downtown Morganton to being “the barber” in downtown Morganton — a respected and loved teller of tales, guardian of secrets, and spiritual counselor to many who sat in his chair.

Now 91 years old, Burl is very much a living history book, and I am fortunate that he chose to share some of the stories from that volume with me on a beautiful late Sunday afternoon in the early spring.

The sun is setting in the west as I sit down with Burl in the comfortable den of his home off Salem Road. The last of the daylight floods the room, filling it with a warm and mellow light, appropriate atmosphere perhaps for looking back over a long and fruitful life.

Joining us is his wife of more than 65 years, Thelma Shuping Sain, and his son Tommy, who followed his father into the barbering profession and who has become a noted community leader in his own right.

Although Tommy and I wear casual weekend wear, Burl is impeccably dressed in a crisply pressed button-down shirt, sharply creased dress slacks, and freshly polished shoes. He is, if nothing else, the epitome of a Southern gentleman.

Nine decades of living has slowed down the man who once barbered, farmed, and preached 16 hours a day. His mobility is limited, and his hearing has declined, but he remains mentally sharp, and his sense of humor breaks out often during the 90 minutes we talk.

Growing up in Toluca

Burl was born in 1932 in the unincorporated community of Toluca in the northwestern part of Lincoln County, smack dab in the middle of The Great Depression.

“I’m sure my parents were glad to see me,” he smiled, noting he was also the middle child of five siblings. “I caught it coming and going,” he recalled.

His dad was a farmer who also worked as a road paver for the N.C. Department of Transportation, rising to the rank of foreman before his retirement. The farm included six acres of cotton as a cash crop, corn, and field peas with two milk cows and also chickens.

Asked how much cotton he picked as a child; Burl offered a simple response: “More than I wanted to.”

As he was growing up, Burl had no notions of becoming a barber. Instead, like an older brother whom he idolized, Thomas Warren Sain, he wanted to be a truck driver.

The older brother drove for Carolina Freight in Cherryville but died tragically at the age of 25 from an unexpected and deadly reaction to penicillin.

The young lad of 18 entered the Army in 1950 and although the Korean War was just getting underway, Burl found himself stationed in what was then West Germany for the bulk of his three years of service.

Returning to the United States in late 1953, Burl decided to attend barber college in Winston-Salem. In 1954, he joined the shop of the late A.M. Moore, located on Union Street next to what was then the Young Ages clothing store.

Building a career and a family

Although he did not know it at the time, a pretty young woman named Thelma Shuping worked across the street from the barbershop at the Modern Finance Company. “Our biggest loan,” she recalled, “was 50 bucks.”

The two saw each other coming and going from work and Burl finally asked for a date. “We went to a baseball game in Oak Hill,” Burl recalled. “Don’t remember who played, but it worked out.”

The young couple was married on Nov. 13, 1955. A little more than four years later, in March of 1960, Burl relocated his shop to the basement beneath Cornwell Drugs, a space owned by the Cornwell family and later by Jerry Norville.

So, what did it take, what does it take, to be a good barber?

“You have to be a good listener,” he replied. “You do an awful lot of listening and give a very little bit of advice. I always liked people. I always liked being around people. You had to listen to your customers, but you also had to focus on what you were doing.”

Burl’s days at the shop in Morganton usually stretched from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays were his day off, but not really. For on Wednesdays, he drove down to Toluca to work at a tiny shop he maintained there just off N.C. 18.

“There was a lot of competition in those days,” Burl recalled. “A lot of barbers in town. A lot of good barbers in town.”

Burl had been in his new downtown location only a few years when a revolution not only changed the face of modern music but also threatened traditional tonsorial parlors all across the country.

The Beatles appeared on American television on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time on Sunday evening, Feb. 9, 1964. For the next several years, trips to the barber grew further and further apart, especially for young men under 40.

“They were tough years,” Burl recalled. “A lot of barbers all over the country and a lot here in Burke County went out of business. Luckily, Burke County was more conservative than a lot of places were, so the impact was less here.”

Also tough on Burl was the toll of logging so many hours standing on his feet, in one spot, day after day after day. Varicose veins inevitably developed and the surgery to repair them was quite gruesome in its outcome.

Asked how he survived those years of such hard work and such long hours, Thelma responds before her husband can answer.

“He had a good wife supporting him,” she interjected. “I always had supper on the table for him when he got home, and I tried to make sure he was in bed by 10 o’clock each night.”

Burl offers no argument.

A story of faith

While the story of Burl as a barber, a very successful barber, is a fascinating one, he will tell you that it is not the most important narrative of his life.

Instead, he will insist that his journey into faith and his service as a Christian minister is far more important.

Burl’s spiritual mentor, a man he admired greatly, was the Rev. Johnny Tiller, who served for a time as pastor of Burkemont Baptist Church.

But it was Burl’s own encounter with God, in a prayer of submission to God’s will, that set him on the path to ministry, a prayer of submission that tied back to the loss of his elder brother and Burl’s desire to make his own life a living tribute to Thomas Warren Sain.

“I said to God, ‘If you want me to preach, I’ll preach,’” Burl remembered.

God did, and Burl accepted the challenge.

He served more than 20 churches, primarily as an interim pastor, over the next several decades — preaching on Sunday morning and Sunday evening, leading mid-week prayer services, visiting the sick and comforting the afflicted.

Long story short, he basically worked two full-time jobs for decades and still found the time to be, according to his son Tommy, a fantastic father and, according to Thelma, a loving and considerate husband.

Closing questions

With the sun having set and the purple haze of twilight beginning to spread across the land, I sense that it is time to bring this interview to a close.

Yet two questions remain.

Burl, I tell him, you have served so many people and touched so many lives, is there a message you’d like to share with your customers?

“Well, Bill,” he answered. “The truth is that nearly all of my customers are gone. But I surely appreciated them while they were here.”

And then, a final question:

Burl, what are you most proud of in your life?

The old gentleman pauses, holding his eyes on my own. There is a light there. The light of wisdom. The light of experience. The light of a life so very well lived. The gaze lingers so long that I think perhaps he is not going to answer.

Then, the reply.

“I’m saved,” Bill. “I’m saved.”