Mitchell Brumfield, 54, of Troutville, passed away Wednesday, April 11, 2012, in a local hospital after suffering injuries from a car accident. Mitchell was born November 26, 1957 in Roanoke. He was a 16 year resident of Bakersfield, Calif. Mitchell was a member of Cave Spring Baptist Church. Mitchell was passionate about his work and coworkers at Laurel Hill Salon. He is survived by his mother, Bonnie Durling of Roanoke; sister, Ann Brumfield of Roanoke; nephew and niece, Bryan and Kris Staggs; uncles, Larry Wood and Alan Wood; niece and nephew, Lisa and John Canney; and three special great-nieces, Megan, Peyton and Ashlyn Canney. Mitchell is also survived by special friends, Jason and Margaret Green and their children, Madison, Elijah and Josiah.
Funeral services will be at Oakey's South Chapel at noon Saturday, April 14, 2012. Interment will follow at Cedar Lawn Memorial Park. The family will receive friends at Oakey's South Chapel from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, April 13, 2012. Online condolences can be made at www.oakeys.com

Article in the Roanoke Times on Tuesday, April 17,2012

You paid him for the hairdo, but what Mitchell Brumfield did for you didn't stop at your roots.

Brumfield's clients over nearly four decades of dressing hair knew him as much more than a talented stylist. He was a beloved salon chair shrink and small-time philanthropist whose best work reached far deeper than the cosmetic.

"He wanted nothing more than everyone around him ... to be happy," said Julie Roach, owner of Laurel Hill Salon in Roanoke County where Brumfield worked the last eight years, until his death Wednesday from injuries in an April 6 car crash. He was 54.

As word of his death spread, condolences and memories poured into the salon's voice mail and Facebook page.

"Mitchell always made me look and feel like a million dollars," one client wrote.

Brumfield began styling hair not long after graduating from Cave Spring High School.

For about 20 years he worked in Bakersfield, Calif., before returning to his hometown, where he worked at a few different salons.

"The great thing about what I do is that I rarely feel as if I have to 'go to work.' Normally, I 'go to play,'" Brumfield said in a 2011 Roanoke Times story about people who love their jobs. "Sharing both a professional and personal relationship with many people proved to be of greater value to me than any of the things I believe I offer them."

Those in the chair knew the greater value of being Brumfield's client, too.

"It's funny how someone who spends a precious 2 hrs with you every five weeks can have such a profound effect on you," wrote a former client in California in an online memorial. "Mitch had rescued me from a self-inflicted horrific haircut at the age of 13. He continued to care for me though high school, college, a marriage, the birth of my twins, and a divorce. I can't begin to count the tears he endured."

"He was our friend, our counselor, our confidante," said Roach. She may own the Brambleton Avenue salon, "but he was the boss, and everybody knows it."

The eight women who worked with Brumfield were dubbed "the wives," Roach said.

In recent years, Brumfield fought off cancer and survived a heart attack and a bypass surgery.

"We just pecked at him, we cared so much about his health," Roach said.

Pam Berberich said her friend remained positive throughout his own health struggles.

"He always was upbeat," she said, always saying, "it is what it is, you take it and you go on."

Brumfield mostly worried about others.

As Berberich, owner of Glazed Bisque-It, worked her way through a divorce, Brumfield, who knew her from bringing his nieces to her pottery decorating shop, would drop in and check on her. Cards from him would appear in her mail just when she needed a lift, saying, "Chin up and keep going, and you're a good person and you'll be OK."

Brumfield had no children of his own, but dressed as Santa at Christmas for the children of his friends.

Though hardly wealthy, a quick search of The Roanoke Times archives turns up a record of numerous and regular acts of philanthropy by Brumfield, from contributions to the Fincastle Volunteer Rescue Squad to the Good Neighbors Fund.

"I know that I am blessed in my life," Brumfield told The Roanoke Times in 2010. "There are many in need."

In 2008, he took such an interest in a hardworking William Fleming High School student who had been accepted to Harvard University, he took it upon himself to establish a bank account to provide spending money for her and sent 250 letters to friends soliciting donations for it. Brumfield never went to college himself, but he wanted her to be able to get through school without having to work a part-time job.

Brumfield lived in Troutville, and was driving on Etzler Road near his home when his car inexplicably veered off the road, struck a tree and a culvert, and overturned. Rescue workers freed him and he was taken by helicopter to Carilion Clinic, where he survived for five days. His friends speculate he may have had a problem with his heart while driving.

His spinal cord was damaged, Roach said, "and it was very apparent that his life would be drastically different."

As will life without him, Roach said.

People ask her, "What are you going to do? The salon won't be the same without him."

She can only agree.

It won't be.