Anthony Dellamonica starting watching his dad cutting hair when he was 12. In the 1940s, a haircut at his father's shop cost 65 cents.
Although he didn't immediately take to the business, he got his license and eventually opened his own shop in downtown Shelton.
"If your father was a barber, someone in your family was going to be a barber," said Dellamonica, 84, who recently took time off from his shop.
He recalled taking the bus for 10 cents every day and giving his first haircut. "Inside my guts were grinding," he said, of his first time. It wasn't entirely successful, leading to his brief break from the industry.
Eventually he commuted five days a week to Hartford to Barber school, and got his first job at 18 for low pay by the standards of that time. He soon tired of the pay and was hired away to a shop down the street, and bought the shop with a partner after several years.
Over the years, he expanded the shop and learned new haircutting techniques. Meanwhile, every shop around him closed up while his business endured. He recalled many fights with barber's unions, noting that he outlasted the competition.
Dellamonica has cut the hair of Prescott Bush, father of former President George H. W. Bush.
"My place got to be known as the place to get a haircut, Dellamonica said.
When he wasn't working, he also volunteered by serving on the Planning and Zoning Commission, the Conservation Commission and the Rotary Club, and spent time fishing and hunting and shooting on the side. Dellamonica also played trumpet and played in bands.
"I had a lot of fun playing," he said.
During that time, he also married his wife, Margaret (nicknamed "Midge"), a singer and a dancer with whom he performed, and had two children. Today Dellamonica has four grandchildren, one of whom is a musician. One of his children is a veterinarian. Margaret died in August 2012, at 81, after 61 years of marriage.
He's not sure what he wants to do yet. "I haven't really made up my mind about retiring," Dellamonica said recently.
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