Los Angeles
County
Biographies
ROBERT N. PURSEL
The
youngest owner and operator of a business establishment in Alhambra, Robert N.
Pursel has achieved high recognition for his talents which are many and
varied. Mr. Pursel personally owns and
operates Pursel Hair Fashions, which is located at 59 South Garfield Avenue in
Alhambra. His famous modern progressive
hair styling and expert hair coloring are two of the outstanding features of
his very successful beauty salon.
Through his eight employees, Mr. Pursel offers make-up counseling and
high hair styling to the fashionable women of Alhambra and the surrounding
areas.
Although
he opened his beauty salon in June of 1960, Mr. Pursel, at the age of
twenty-eight is by no means a newcomer to the hair styling and fashion
field. He received his degree in
Cosmetology and hair styling from the Marinello School of Beauty Culture in Los
Angeles in 1956. For one and one-half
years following his graduation, Mr. Pursel was a teacher of hair styling,
coloring and make-up coordination at the John Robert Powers School of Modeling
in Los Angeles. Photographs and
explanations of his creative work have been published in the American Hair
Dresser magazine.
Recognition
of his unique talents in hair styling has come from his colleagues in the hair
styling field. Mr. Pursel has many
trophies which he has won at conventions where he has shown his creative
abilities and talents as a demonstrator for well known permanent wave and hair
color companies.
Born
in Colton, California, on May 19, 1932, Mr. Pursel is the son of automobile
dealer Preston Holmes Pursel and Virginia (Nelson) Pursel, who now reside in
Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Pursel is one of
two children and is a distant relative of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the renowned
American jurist.
Educated
in elementary schools in Pasadena, California, Mr. Pursel graduated from Covina
High School, Covina, California, in 1950.
He studied dancing for fourteen years under private tutorage. He also was a student of dramatic arts at the
College of Theater Arts which is affiliated with the Pasadena Playhouse
Association in Pasadena, California. Mr.
Pursel enlisted in the United States Navy in 1950 and was honorably discharged
in 1954.
Robert
N. Pursel married the former Miss Joyce Tindall, a
native of Covina, California, on June 26, 1954, in the First Methodist Church
of Covina. They Pursel’s
have two sons, Jeffrey Robert, born on March 11, 1956, and Gregory James, who
was born on November 10, 1957.
In
addition to operating the Pursel Hair Fashions, Mr. Pursel is a teacher and
co-director of the Advance Styling Department of his alma mater, the Marinello
School of Beauty Culture. He is a member
of the California Cosmetology Teachers Association; the National Hair Dressers
Association and the Alhambra Chamber of Commerce.
Dress
designing, painting and millinery are hobbies for Mr. Pursel, a man whose mind
is always occupied with creative ideas for improving the fashions of American
women.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Historical Volume & Reference Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park,
Rosemead, San Gabriel & Temple City, by Robert P. Studer,
Pages 555-556, Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California. 1962.
© 2013 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPHIES