Helenmaire White, 62

Died February 6, 2021.

Ballou STAY Opportunity Academy, Washington, DC

Cosmetology

Local news:

Helenmaire’ White spent most of her working life styling hair at The Ultimate Touch Hair Salon, a business she opened with her husband on Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue in Southeast D.C. in the late 1980s.

Her five children grew up at the salon, spending hours after school and weekends watching their mother hold easy conversation with clients as she toiled over their hair, said Tony White II, her oldest son.

“She loved the cultivation,” Tony White II said. “It was always about helping, it was always about service.”

White died Feb. 6 from complications of COVID-19. She was 62. She and her husband, Tony White, were married for 40 years.

In 2007, White came across another work opportunity: teaching cosmetology at Ballou STAY Opportunity Academy. Her children were hesitant about having their mother embark on a second career. White was nearing retirement, Tony White II said, and he wanted her to spend those years with him and the rest of the family, a close-knit tribe.

But when White visited the cosmetology program at Ballou STAY and met the young women enrolled in it, she “fell in love,” her son recalled. Suddenly, a woman who hardly used computers started developing curricula and giving tests.

“I saw my mom do one thing for my whole life. I never imagined my mom being a teacher,” he said. “She really poured her heart into everything that she did.”

When the family closed the salon in 2014, White continued teaching.

Ballou STAY is an alternative high school, educating students at risk of not reaching graduation. Students there are at least 16 years old and have fallen six or more credits behind grade level. The school also offers vocational programs to adults seeking barbering and cosmetology licenses.

Lannette Taylor had already spent years styling hair without a license when she enrolled in Ballou STAY’s cosmetology program a decade ago. Taylor viewed White as a second mother, someone who motivated her to attend class when she would have preferred spending the day earning money at work. She said White was a patient educator who cared deeply for her students.

“Mrs. White believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself,” Taylor said during a vigil outside the school Wednesday. “There were many days when I didn’t want to come, that I didn’t want to be in school… what she put inside of me, it just made me want to.” 

Rhonda Davis was inspired to enroll in White’s class after her daughter received her cosmetology license through the year-long program. The 49-year-old had started pursuing a career as a cosmetologist many years ago in high school but fell off that path after getting married and having children. 

Davis started the cosmetology program in Aug. 2019 and was supposed to complete the program last summer. But the coronavirus pandemic delayed the program, she said, and she returned to Ballou STAY in October to finish.

White called students if they missed a couple days of class, Davis said, nudging them to show up. The teacher organized a Christmas gift exchange. 

“It was a family,” Davis said. “And that’s how she treated everybody.”

White’s daughter, Faith White, said teaching came naturally to her mother because of her patience. She took pride in her students, encouraging them to compete in local hair styling competitions. 

“She had such confidence in them that they could do anything,” said White, who briefly took her mother’s class.

The Washington Teachers’ Union filed a complaint about Ballou STAY after White’s death, alleging safety protocols were violated. D.C. Public Schools denies those allegations. White’s family does not want to speak about the dispute, said Tony White II. Instead, they want to focus on remembering her as she was. 

“The legacy of this woman is not one of strife,” he said. “Dealing with school, she felt she had a mission. And if those girls were going to be at school, she was going to be at school because she had to get them through.” 

She was a devout Christian who had a gentle touch, her family said. But she would never side with someone if she felt they were wrong.

Each Christmas before the pandemic, she invited her entire extended family over for a breakfast potluck and woke up at 3 a.m. to start cooking herself. Once everyone arrived, she stood back, watching the merriment, and would quietly utter, “My family.”

She kept in constant touch with her children and grandchildren, hopping on FaceTime with them throughout the day. After White died, her family looked through the photos on her phone. They discovered all the “sneaky little screenshots” she took of the video calls, Tony White II said.

“She loved so much,” her son said. “She loved hard.”