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| Besides grooming hair and beards, barbers throughout history have played a variety of surprising roles: as surgeons, dentists and wigmakers, as well as confidants, gossips and advisors. Although he performs all the services you'd expect today, Manfred Linke is not your average barber. With his mischievous sense of humor and his eye for detail, he's just as likely to ask your advice when he trims your hair as to give it. After cutting hair for more than 50 years, Manfred has seen and heard a thing or two, and probably has some sort of story to tell about it. |
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 For 20 years, Manfred has been a member of the Lincoln Square Chamber of Commerce—as long as his barber shop has been located in the neighborhood. He has lived in the Lincoln Square community since he came to Chicago from Germany in 1957. Marked with a traditional barber pole, his current barber shop on Sunnyside overlooking Welles Park is a Lincoln Square institution. People have learned they can depend on Linke to always be there to cut their hair—he is so hardworking that he hasn't taken an extended vacation since he took five weeks off to visit Europe with his wife in 1983.
Manfred Linke was born in Dessau, Germany. He grew up in Aken/Elbe, a small town about 40 miles southwest of Berlin, where his parents owned a barber shop of their own. He first trained to be a barber and beautician in his parents' shop, where his mother and father worked side by side cutting hair. Not long after his town was divided by the split between East and West Germany, he left for Chicago and began working in a barber shop on Southport. When he had saved enough money, he opened up his own barber shop in Andersonville, on Clark Street. His business grew rapidly, and a few years later he moved into another space on Foster. "At one time, I had three barbers and a shoe shiner," recalls Manfred. Eventually, he decided to relocate his shop to Lincoln Square, not far from where his home was on Artesian. He ran his shop in a storefront on Western Avenue for about 10 years, then finally settled into his current location on Sunnyside. |
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 Since Manfred arrived in Chicago, he has always lived in Lincoln Square. Not far down Western Avenue from where his shop is now, he first saw the woman who would become his wife, Elisabeth: they met at a German Festival at Riverview. Manfred asked her to dance with him, and that was that. She, too, is German, although she was born in Yugoslavia. They raised their two children, a son and a daughter, in Lincoln Square. Manfred and Elisabeth still live in the neighborhood on Artesian. Elisabeth works at Lutz Cafe, where she has made marzipan and chocolate for 30 years. In the mornings, Manfred and Elisabeth both leave to walk to work together, "she goes one way, and I go the other," Manfred says with a smile.
When you are a barber for as long as Manfred, you tend to have a lot of regular customers. For the past 35 years, Manfred has cut Casper's hair. Every three weeks on Wednesday, Casper arrives for his early morning haircut. "He has never missed an appointment," says Manfred. "Every time I see him it's funny...He's like my wife. And I've been married to my wife for 55 years," laughs Casper. They have known each other since Manfred ran his shop on Foster Avenue, where Casper brought his son for his first haircut back in the days when he was in the real estate business. "He'd better not retire," says Casper. "There are two things I don't want to lose: my doctor and my barber." |
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| When you visit Linke's Barber Shop, you get more than a great haircut and a scenic view of Welles Park. You might also get to hear some of Manfred's views on life. Although you can tell what a friendly and good natured person he is by his constant smile and the number of times he waves to people walking past his window, Manfred admits that sometimes dealing with people isn't easy. "You've got to work at it," he says. "We all have our good days and our bad days." If you listen to his longtime customers like Casper, Manfred does just fine. "He has his own mind, he has his own ideas," he says of Manfred. "He won't take nothing from nobody." Of his secret to life, Manfred says, "You've got to work hard. You should never blame anybody else. If something goes wrong, blame yourself," he says. "Take things into your own hands. You make your own life...Life is about giving 50/50—you take but you must give too." |
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Although he works hard doing yardwork on his days off, Manfred does manage to take a little time to relax. On Sundays or Mondays when his shop is closed, you might find him eating lunch with his wife at his favorite restaurant, Chicago Brauhaus, where he dines on pork shanks and sauerkraut—always with a German beer. He also loves to spend time with his grandkids, and makes a point of watching them play baseball in the warmer months. Although he rarely takes a break from work, he would like to schedule another trip to Germany one day. On their last trip overseas in 1983, he and Elisabeth returned to Europe and drove through East and West Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia together. |
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| Read more profiles in the Member of the Month Archives |
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