Bless Your Headlines: A Hair-Raising Goodbye

There are museums that house paintings, sculptures, and priceless relics of history—and then there’s Leila’s Hair Museum, where the exhibits literally grew on people. For three decades, the late Leila Cohoon’s Independence, Missouri, institution proudly displayed wreaths, jewelry, and trinkets all lovingly crafted from… human hair.

Now, with Leila’s passing at age 92, her granddaughter is rehoming more than 3,000 hair art pieces to museums across the country. And I, for one, have questions. Mostly starting with: who looked at a lock of Aunt Mildred’s hair and thought, “Now that would make a lovely necklace”?

A Legacy with Split Ends

To be fair, the Victorians had a flair for sentimentality—and an alarming lack of boundaries when it came to body parts. In their world, a locket of your beloved’s hair was the height of romance. These folks didn’t just keep mementos; they wove them into art. So Leila’s Hair Museum wasn’t as strange as it sounds… okay, no, it was strange, but in the kind of way that makes America great.

For thirty years, her Independence, Missouri, collection attracted visitors from all walks of life—including Ozzy Osbourne. Because apparently, nothing screams “rock and roll” like touring a museum filled with hair wreaths of the deceased. Somewhere between Marilyn Monroe’s curls and “tresses of Jesus,” even the Prince of Darkness was impressed.

From Easter Shoes to Eternal Strands

Leila’s obsession began innocently enough. Back in 1956, while shopping for Easter shoes, she stumbled across a framed floral design made entirely of human hair in an antique store. Some people collect stamps; Leila collected follicles. One man’s yard sale oddity became her life’s passion, and soon, she’d amassed thousands of hair-based works spanning centuries.

Her granddaughter, Lindsay Evans, is now doing the painstaking—and probably slightly itchy—work of finding new homes for the collection. Pieces are heading to prestigious places like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. So the next time you visit the Met, just remember: one of those displays might’ve come from someone’s great-great-grandmother’s braid.

Locks of Love (and Legacy)

When Lindsay walks through the museum, she says she still feels her grandmother’s presence. That makes sense. I imagine a place filled with human hair would feel haunted even on the sunniest day. But in all seriousness, her dedication is beautiful. She’s honoring her grandmother’s life’s work—helping these relics of memory find new purpose while processing her own grief.

Leila saw beauty where most of us see a need for a lint roller. Her museum wasn’t just about hair—it was about connection, remembrance, and the strange ways we humans try to hold on to one another after we’re gone. And isn’t that what legacy really is? A strand that ties us to those before us.