Orlando “Orla” Litrenta 1911-1999

The Journal Times Monday, June 22, 1998 Home Delivery: 634-3333 50 Cents Photos by Mark Hertzberg, Journal Times Orla Litrenta and his barber shop are still going strong after all these years History and a haircut Dan Tennessen gets a hot lather shave and a haircut from Orla Litrenta at Litrenta’s State Street barber shop. Litrenta, who is 87, has cut hair out of this location since the early 1920s. Metro on the Beat By Gary Metro Gary Metro roams Racine County looking for interesting people, places and things. Got an idea for a story? Give him a call at 634-3322, extension 230. Time changes everything greatly, unless you’re talking about the cozy confines of Orla’s Barber Shop — the place with all the plants in the window, just north of where State meets Spring Street in Racine. This place has a worn tile floor, black-and-white barber chairs of porcelain, leather and gleaming chrome and a pedestal sink in the middle of the shop. The look of this shop was almost institutional in places where a man’s hair met scissors and comb prior to the late 1960s. In this tiny spot of a shop, Chicago gangster Al Capone once got a shave and a haircut. Racine native and Hollywood star Frederic March also was an occasional customer — accustomed to popping in on his way to the golf course. Everything here is as aged and well-preserved as the lore about the shop, even the sole barber and proprietor, Orlando “Orla” Litrenta. He’s 87 and has been cutting hair in this shop since the early 1920s. But you’d never guess his vintage from the pep in his step, the speed of his shears or the sparkle in his eyes. What’s his secret? “I like to work,” he explains between haircuts. “I don’t drink or smoke. I used to box and I walk … I play cards with the boys at night and I eat good food — lasagna, ravioli, spaghetti. I eat a lot of pasta and a lot of vegetables.” An afternoon at Orla’s is like a trip down memory lane. Metal chairs are lined square along the north wall, ample if not fancy seating for waiting customers. Long fluorescent fixtures dangle from the tin ceiling. An AM radio crackles steadily with the hits of several bygone ages — Louis Armstrong croaking “What a Wonderful World,” Nat King Cole crooning “Dance Ballerina Dance” and Elvis crying “It’s Now or Never.” Even the barber looks fresh from the Norman Rockwell covers of an old Saturday Evening Post. He favors pressed dress trousers (men of his age would never call them ► More on BARBER, Page 7A
Racine Journal Times, June 22, 1998. Orla Litrenta and his barber shop are still going strong after all these years. History and a Haircut.
BARBER / Customers From Page 1A pants), high-collared white barbering smocks and shiny black shoes — not the jeans, knit tops and running shoes of the poofy-haired young women who snip tresses at generic strip mall shops that carry names like “Haircuts R Us.” This is a place that has been nearly forgotten by both time and inflation. When Litrenta was a young barber in the roaring and prosperous 1920s, the shop at 1675 State St. offered haircuts for $3.50 apiece. Today the price is just $6 for a haircut. That appealing price and Litrenta’s still ample skills as a barber keep folks coming through the door, even when the afternoon sun makes the interior of the brick building just a touch toasty. “It’s hard to find this kind of barber any more,” the Rev. Pedro Lopez says as Litrenta’s scissors and comb dueled a path around his scalp. “He was recommended to me by another member of our church last year. I’ve been coming here ever since. He does a good job.” Litrenta crops close above the customer’s ears, much as he did minutes earlier with the pastor’s 10-year-old son, Alex. “Today was the first day I brought my son,” Lopez explains. “I told him not to be afraid. (Litrenta’s) good.” One step remains in the standard haircut at Orla’s. There is a whoosh-like sound as Litrenta works the hot lather machine, while Lopez relaxes in the highback chair. “Now is the exciting part,” Lopez said. “He gets out the big blade and shaves the sides.” Litrenta shaves quickly with the bone-handled, straight-edge razor, navigating a slick-as-a-whistle path that leads from Lopez’s right sideburn, then above the right ear, to the back of the neck and finally above the left ear to the other sideburn. “This is called trusting your barber,” Lopez says. After whisking away the remains of the lather with quick sweeps of the menacing blade, Litrenta collects his pay and takes a short break. He sits when he tires of standing, and also will close his shop briefly to have breakfast or lunch with friends. Otherwise the place is open from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. This business of barbering always has been enjoyable, Litrenta says. “I like it. I talk to all kinds of people. I shoot the breeze with them and argue with them. When the politicians are here, I argue with them about politics,” he says. When he began working in the shop in “1923 or 1924” the Belle City was an industrial powerhouse in a nation that looked ahead to nothing but prosperity. His customers were doctors and lawyers and business owners and regular Joes — essentially the same type of folks who still come through the door. There also were professional boxers in the early days, and the occasional visit from the infamous and famous. Such as Capone the crook, or March the matinee idol. “Capone came to visit next door and they sent him over to me for a shave. He was with two or three other guys and they just stood around. I didn’t know who he was at the time,” Litrenta says. He found out later that Capone was checking on a Racine distribution spot for his bootleg booze. The shave must have gone well, too, because Litrenta recalls getting a nice tip. Capone visited one more time. “He came back the next week and got a haircut. He gave me $20,” Litrenta says. March would stop by the shop on his way to the country club. He’d get a shave and a haircut. Even the Great Depression couldn’t stop the barber shop. Shops elsewhere in the city slashed their haircut prices to 25 cents or less, but Litrenta said the barbering business on State Street still expected $3.50 — and got it. “The guys that came here still had money,” Litrenta explains. Life has been good for Litrenta. He and his bride, Hazel, have been married for 51 years and recently made their third trip to his native Italy. He probably could sweep the floor one last time, lock up the shop and make a full-time task of the flowers and bushes and a few vegetables he lovingly tends. That’s not his plan, however. He closes the shop whenever he feels like it now, so there’s no need to retire. His future plans include barbering, for as long as possible. “I won’t stop until they take me away from here,” he says. “I won’t stop until the undertaker comes and takes me away.”
Continued from Page 1A. Racine Journal Times, June 22, 1998. Orla Litrenta and his barber shop are still going strong after all these years. History and a Haircut.
Orlando ‘Orla’ Litrenta Racine Journal Times, November 30, 1999 RACINE – Orlando ‘Orla’ Litrenta, 88, passed away at St. Mary’s Medical Center on Saturday, November 27, 1999. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Tuesday, November 30, 1999, at 10 a.m. with Rev. Ronald Crewe officiating, assisted by Deacon Russell Missureli. Interment will follow at Holy Cross Cemetery on Highway 32. Relatives and friends may meet with the family at the church on Tuesday from 9:30 a.m. until time of Mass. MARESH-MEREDITH AND ACKLAM FUNERAL HOME 803 Main Street  634-7888
Orlando “Orla” Litrenta obituary. Racine Journal Times, November 30, 1999.
Gerald Karwowski: I bought the complete interior of the Barbershop in 1998. It is part of my Museum collection here at Oak Clearings.