EXCHANGE: After 68-year career, Streator barber won't quit

The popular Streator barber recently turned 92, and although he has had to move his shop a couple times over the years, Willy's Barber Shop is currently open for business at Liberty Village, where he resides.

After returning from a stint in the Philippines during World War II and working briefly as a machine operator at Owens-Illinois, Ratliff began cutting hair in 1948.

Schmidt said the admiration between Ratliff and his child clients was mutual — perhaps with the aid of the box of Bazooka bubble gum he kept hidden in his cabinet.

Dad would tell them if they wanted their son's hair cut they were going to have to take a walk up the street.

Ratliff's reputation as a barber preceded him and he was never without clients — he says his record was 51 cuts in one day.

Over the years he'd bring home vegetables fresh from the garden, meat and an assortment of other items he 'traded' for a haircut or two.

The day I checked him out of the hospital I had to take him to the barber shop to get his tools and then out to Heritage Manor because there was 'an old timer' (as Dad called him) that needed a haircut.