Published: October 24, 2008 08:16 pm      

Caring for others comes naturally to day-spa owner

HOLLSOPPLE — While some parents yearn for the day when children are grown and out of the house, Donna Meyers of Hollsopple was not one of them.

“I knew I’d end up with empty-nest syndrome,” Meyers said.

A lifelong resident of the Hollsopple/Davidsille area, Meyers was a happily married homemaker who nurtured her daughter and two sons during their childhood and adolescence.

But soon after her children left home, Meyers felt a strong urge to keep busy.

“After spending all those years taking care of everyone

... it was my turn to do something I really wanted to do for me,” Meyers said. “But then, I had to ask myself what I’m good at.”

While Meyers was a former Forbes High School graduate, she lacked other formal training. So she had to rely on her many years of expert homemaking.

“I’m good at serving people and had to decide where that was going to lead,” Meyers said of her talents.

“I saw a show on TV about opening a spa and working with cancer patients, and I figured that was kind of my placement.”

Meyers, who is now a licensed beautician, said her road to owning her own spa was not an easy one.

She began attending school in Maryland on weekends to become licensed.

“After all of that (work) and all the thousands of dollars,

I found out that my license wasn’t good in Pennsylvania,” Meyers explained. By that point, husband Donald’s job in the steel mills was hanging by a thread, and she knew finances would be stressed.

It didn’t stop her.

“I had to mortgage my house and go to school at the Pittsburgh Beauty Academy,” Meyers said. “Then I went to school for reflexology through a school in Florida, and then I went to school at Color Me Beautiful in Chantilly, Va.”

She also attended Somerset Vo-Tech to obtain her nail license. In all, she spent five years furthering her education.

“I needed to round out my business,” Meyers said of her many credentials, which allow her to perform numerous services at her Geistown day spa: Massages, facials, manicures, pedicures, waxing, body treatments and makeup.

Meyers likes to be busy, she says, and describes herself as “multifaceted.”

She and her husband are avid gardeners, and they occasionally show off and share their

two-acre property by hosting teas and garden tours.

Meyers is an herbalist, growing her own herbs, and is a member of a local herb club.

Scrapbooking is another favorite activity that she shares with her granddaughters on lazy winter weekends when the girls’ school sports are finished.

“It’s our way of getting together,” Meyers said.

She also describes herself as a gourmet cook who enjoys baking.

“I’ve been baking pies since I was 5,” Meyers said, adding she has yet to find a pie recipe that she can’t make.

She said stromboli is probably her family’s favorite homemade dish.

Meyers is a member of Oakland United Methodist Church and, throughout the years, has used “Christian-driven faith” to raise her family and guide herself through her many challenges and endeavors. She said everything has been well worth the effort.

“When my kids were growing up, I devoted so much time to my family and others, there wasn’t time for me,” Meyers said. “I had to find something that defined my purpose.”