A grand gift
Eight-year-old gives her love and her locks to help her grandmother as she battles cancer
ABERDEEN, Wash. – Eight-year-old Maizie Chapin wanted to give her grandmother something special this Christmas – a personal gift that could help Marion Chapin, of North River, heal in her battle with cancer.
She wanted to give the gift of her own hair, with the idea that it could be made into a wig for Grandma Chapin to wear while losing her hair during and after chemotherapy treatments.
After reading a book in school about a cancer-stricken girl who raises money to find a cure for cancer by starting a lemonade stand, “Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand,” Maizie suddenly had her inspiration for how to fashion her unique Christmas present idea into reality.
Cutting and saving the hair was the easy part. Finding and affording a specialty wig maker to actually fabricate a wig from the long blond strands of hair proved to be a little more difficult.
Now, thanks to the help of Anton’s Hair Company, a specialty wig maker in Bellevue, Marion Chapin this Christmas has a beautiful new full head of hair from her granddaughter and a Christmas gift she will treasure the rest of her life.
“I was so flattered and surprised,” said Marion, 67. “It was such a beautiful, beautiful gift from her. She’s a very bright child, and I can see her reading that book and coming up with this idea.”
“She is absolutely tickled about it and was kind of speechless about the whole project,” Stacy Chapin said of her mother-in-law’s reaction. “What a thought – ‘Grandma, I want to give you my hair for Christmas.’ ”
Maizie is a triplet with two brothers born on the same day and a second-grader in the Mount Vernon area. After reading the book, which itself helped seed an ongoing fund to raise money for cancer care, Maizie was inspired to try something similar.
The family put together its own story with photos of Maizie and her grandmother, even their own Facebook page, and that started everything falling into place. The family now has not only raised money for the wig but has collected more funds they will donate to the local chapter of the American Cancer Society in the names of Maizie and Marion Chapin.
“We mailed it on to our friends, and they mailed it on and friends sent it on. It’s been absolutely amazing, people’s response to this story,” Stacy Chapin said.
The most difficult part of the idea was the price of the wig itself, which is probably one reason many people don’t have the opportunity to do something similar, Stacy Chapin said.
At first, the cost seemed staggering. It normally costs between $1,400 and $2,000 to have a specialty wig made.
But Maizie was determined, and the letter-writing plan just snowballed into an outpouring of support, compassion and generosity.
“Two weeks ago we were talking about having her hair long,” Stacy Chapin recalled. “And then she starts talking to us about wanting to donate her hair. We were talking about who would get it, and she says, ‘Why can’t grandma have it?’ ”
It was a question that stumped her parents.
“So I researched it and there was nothing except a group known as Locks of Love, which takes generic donations of hair,” Stacy Chapin said. “When you mail your hair to them, you don’t get to pick the recipient.”
She and her husband, Jim Chapin, also contacted the American Cancer Society.
“I was thinking that surely people have done this before, but I was told no one had, and the only chance I had was to find Anton the wig maker, who has been making wigs from human hair since 1952,” Stacy Chapin said.
When they contacted him in Bellevue, Anton Schoenbacher told her he was probably the only one in the Seattle area who could do the work if the family could raise the money.
So Maizie raised the funds through letters, had her waist-length hair cut and Grandma Chapin came up to Anton’s salon for a mold of her head. Anton personally fit the wig cap for Marion then attached the fine strands of hair.
“Anton was very sweet. He just said, ‘What a wonderful thing.’ He told us, ‘I have never had a project like this,’ and he went to work on it right away,” Stacy Chapin said.
Even though it was to be a Christmas present, Marion Chapin already has been wearing the wig and loves the results.
“It’s such a loving gift from Maizie. Once she got the idea, it just bloomed,” Marion Chapin said. “Now, when I put the wig on, it’s like a transformation, because it’s exactly the same color my hair was when I was younger. It’s very, very special.”
Maize also likes her hair in the shorter style because she says it helps her run faster. It looks almost identical to the wig Grandma Chapin now proudly wears everywhere.