Two sisters sit along the wall in the back room of a house-turned-salon with a bag of Arby’s breakfast in hand.
Hair stylist Flora “Flo” Casey, 51, greets them as she walks in. One sister hands a sausage-and-egg sandwich to Flo at the start of their weekly appointment at Flobie’s Hair and Nails.
“I have been going to Flo for more years than I can remember,” customer Sue Gravitt, 72, says. “I would follow her to wherever.”
Flo has a special connection to many of her customers, which she says keeps her going even as she fights serious health problems and personal battles.
After every appointment, she hugs her clients.
“Come here and tell me that you love me,” she says.
Flo grew up in Frankfort as the second oldest of four children. While growing up, she started to feel out of place. After her mother died in 1982 following open-heart surgery, Flo’s concerns about how different she looked from her siblings grew: They all had brown hair. She was blonde.
When she confronted her father, he told her: “Legally I am your father, but biologically I’m not.”
“That was the day my world stopped turning,” Flo says.
A few months later, she tracked down her biological father. The revelation in some ways set her on the path for the rest of her life. In 1995, when she enrolled in cosmetology school, she knew she was in the right place when her instructor turned out to be a half sister Flo never knew.
“It’s just funny how God plays things out,” Flo says.
Twenty years later, Flo owns Flobie’s Hair and Nails on the outskirts of Frankfort. She loves what she does and she considers her customers friends.
Flo is in pain from a variety of medical conditions, including having part of her abdomen removed and replaced after complications following liposuction. She also fights diabetes and arthritis, and recently had pneumonia and kidney stones. Still, Flobie’s sustains her.
“I didn’t want to give up my business and my clients,” Flo says. “And all of my clients become my friends.”
