Ella Woolfolk, one of Henderson’s longest-running business owners who ran a Plum Street beauty salon for 72 years, has died. She was 93.
Woolfolk was originally from Clarksville, Tenn., and came to Henderson in 1946 as a teenager. After graduating from Douglass High School, she went on to cosmetology school in Paducah before she opened her shop in 1954.
Up till the very end, Ella still had a get-up-and-go attitude, working at her shop till December, said nephew Stacey Gilbert.
He said Ella was in the hospital in January the same week as the local snowstorm, but after she got out, she said, “I’m ready to go,” according to Gilbert.
“She was ready to get back to church,” Gilbert said. Ella played piano at Walnut Hill Missionary Baptist Church and according to Gilbert, had been doing that for some 67 years.
According to her obituary, Ella served as the pianist and Director of Worship Arts, including as a Worship Leader, Easter Program Coordinator, Christmas Program Coordinator and a Senior Mother at the church.
“She made a difference,” Gilbert said, adding that congregants always spoke about her and how she made them feel special.
She couldn’t totally get over her sickness after she recently came home from the hospital, and she went back in, before being transferred to the St. Anthony’s Hospice Lucy King Smith Care Center on March 23, Gilbert said. It was at this point that she told her nephew that her time was drawing near.
“My whole body is aching,” Gilbert said she told him. “I’m ready to go be with the Lord.”
She died on Wednesday, March 25, at 1:08 p.m., Gilbert said. Her daughter, Tonya, who lives in Louisville, and other family members were by her side at her death.
Ella was featured in a March 2025 Hendersonian article that detailed a bit of her longevity at her salon, Woolfolk Beauty Shop.
In the article, she said she felt blessed, and people have always treated her well, bringing her food or sending flowers that she displayed in her shop through the years. Of her clients, she says, “The people have been so nice. They were nice people. Just nice.”
It was the same in her last days, with many people coming to visit her and say their goodbyes, Gilbert said.
She gave him instructions: “Tell everyone I said ‘thank you’ for the food and stopping by.”
Ella was married to Prince Woolfolk, who along with being a preacher working throughout the state also ran Woolfolk’s Bar-B-Q, the family’s Cairo barbecue restaurant that was always regarded as one of the best, if not the best, around.
Ella Woolfolk’s funeral will be at noon Saturday at Victory Christian Center Church on Airline Road. She will be buried in Fernwood Cemetery.
According to her obituary, visitation and wake services will be 6-8 p.m. Friday April 3, 2026, at Walnut Hill Missionary Baptist Church with a musical service beginning at 7:00 p.m. Additional visitation will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to the time of the funeral at Victory Christian Center Church.
In honor of Ella Woolfolk’s lifetime business achievement, her family will be presented with a Proclamation from the City of Henderson by Henderson City Mayor Brad Staton during the funeral service, said the obituary.
Read her obituary here.
