This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Foote, Armstrong, Gibbs, Noll, Perkins, Dewey Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/yFC.2ACI/366 Message Board Post: Only One Barber Left To Serve Village Valley Era Died With Barber Billy Meyer "Billy" Meyer, barber to two generations of Spring Valley Citizens, is dead at 71. Death came quietly and suddenly to the little guy with the big heart Thursday night at 10:45. He'd been at the barber shop most of the day, At mid-afternoon Principal Rudy Syverson stopped for a haircut. Billy complained of pains in his stomach, and Rudy took him to a doctor's office. But the doctor wasn't in, and Billy returned to the shop. Later, the pains returned, and his condition grew rapidly worse. Village President Edward, Bjornson rushed him to the Eau Claire hospital, where the third little man, who had seen history in the making, slipped out of this life as quietly as he had lived it. Billy's barber shop was an institution in Spring Valley. When there was an argument about "the good old days", Billy settled it. He loved sports. He'd been a great little ball player for Spring Valley years ago. Of late, years, he' s suffered with his feet. Frequently, he was forced to perform the functions of his trade seated on a stool. But no matter how tiring the day, Billy seldom missed an old fashioned dance. He had little use for "new fangled" dancing, but he cut a pretty caper with his wife, whose spirits were as youthful as his, in a square dance. Nobody ever suggested a community job that Billy wasn't ready to do. At the Business Men's Association meeting the other night he grabbed the coffee making job for the coming Farmers Institute. Billy seldom missed a business meeting, a meeting of the baseball association or the other community organizations, and he never shirked his load, whether it was responsibility or generous contribution. His shocking death leave Spring Valley with one active barber, Matt Hanson. Valley's third barber, the same Del Clark who taught Billy the trade, is still an invalid as the result of a recent auto accident, and may not be back on the job for some time to come. A former resident of Eau Claire, Billy had lived in Spring Valley during the winter months since 1943. In the summer he drove back and forth to his home in Hersey. He is survived by his wife, Margaret Ann, Spring Valley; a son, Reginald W. Meyer, Eau Claire; a daughter, Mrs. Kenneth C. Bandelert, Chippewa Falls; a step son, Lt. Robert Lewis, Edwards Air Force Base, Edwards, Calif; two step daughters, Mrs. Wival Foote, Spring Valley and Mrs. Elsie Lewis, St. Paul; three brothers, Mathias, Downing Wis, Andrew, Anoka, Minn, and Frank, Ellsworth; one sister, Mrs. Ernest Langer, Ellsworth; and 16 grandchildren. Services were held Sunday at 2 PM from Stokes and Sons chapel. Officiating was the Rev. Fred J. Jordan. Interment was made in Prairie View cemetery, Chippewa Falls.