A mid-Michigan woman with thinning hair needed a boost. A stranger made sure she got one.

LANSING TWP. – Mary Ellen Pitkowski got the surprise of her life at a Frandor-area wig shop.

Pitkowski, 79, said she was feeling low after treatment for macular degeneration left her with thinning hair.

A granddaughter bought her a wig on Amazon but it wasn’t right. The older woman talked her son into driving her from her Montcalm County home to Lansing on Thursday to try on wigs at Elegante Studio.

While her son waited in the car, Pitkowski, nervously walked into the store for her appointment to select a wig.

While waiting, another customer, a stranger, came up to her and said she would pick up her tab.

Pitkowski was skeptical. It turned out to be true.

“I’m still not sure it happened. No one’s ever done anything so nice to me before," Pitkowski said.

The stranger is Jessie Davis, 74, a former Lansing resident who made a quick visit to see family last week. She drove from Macon, Georgia, where she moved a few years after her husband, Willie, died in 2010.

Davis said she likes to buy things for people.

“I’m doing it from the heart. Something God gave me to give back,” she said.

Plus, she said, she worked in special education and her husband, a retired General Motors Corp. worker and teacher, left her money. And, she reasons, "you can't take it with you."

'Don’t assume, ever, what people are going to buy.'

While that “pay-it-forward” attitude often means buying a cup of joe for the stranger behind you in line at the coffee shop, Davis takes it to a whole new level.

She once bought living room furniture for a struggling friend and lunch for a large group of soldiers.

“I feel so excited to see the light on their faces,” she said.

On Thursday, she and a friend went shopping at Elegante Studio. The two were boisterous and having fun trying on scarves and hats.

The staff wasn’t even sure the casually dressed pair were going to purchase anything.

It was a big lesson in not judging a book by its cover, said salesperson and stylist Linda Wegener.

She waited on Davis and the pair hit it off.

“She was very entertaining,” Wegener said. “She said, ‘You’re a lot of fun.’ I said, ‘No, you’re a lot of fun.”

Then came the shopping spree worthy of Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman.”

Davis looked at a half-dozen head scarves at $30 a pop. She liked them and said she wanted to buy them, all of them. Then she tried on hats called fascinators, the kind the Royals wear, that jut sideways.

She picked up a few of them. 

Wegener asked why she wanted so many.

“She said ‘Honey, I’m going to wear these to church,’” Wegener said.

She didn’t stop here.

Davis picked out a wig for herself, then while checking out, told Pitkowski she would pick up the bill for her wig.

Then Davis and her friend left the wig shop for a sandwich while Pitkowski made her selection. The staff seemed doubtful they would return, Davis said.

But an hour later, the pair came back to check on Pitkowski's progress. 

Davis even helped Pitkowski select a wig, a pricey one over $400. In all, Davis spent $1,000.

“Don’t assume, ever, what people are going to buy. Everybody is so quick to judge,” Wegener said.

'Most wonderful thing'

Only after Davis left the store, did Wegener realize they didn't take her photo or get her contact information to tell the story of generosity. I was able to track her down through online public records. She was already back in Macon by the next morning after an all-night drive.

It was big, needed boost for Pitkowski.

"I’ve been around 79 years. No one’s ever paid it forward. This is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me,” Pitkowski said.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @judyputnam.

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