A Shoebox of Memories

Candelyn:  Tell me stories about shoes.  About the little girl who wore out her shoes.  About getting frost bite from having your pants tied down around your shoes.  Tell me about cowboy boots.  Of Grandpa making his own shoes and having his own cobbler's bench.  Or anything else about shoes.

Merry-Go-Round Shoes

The story about the girl wearing out her shoes was a mystery to me until you explained about a merry-go-round being in it.  Gale Hansen was my second cousin and my Aunt Lydia's grand daughter who moved to Snowflake  during the war years.  At the school there was a fairly large merry-go-round made of galvanized pipe that kids could push and when it got going fast enough you jumped on and had a good ride.  Gale and I were playing on it and after we got it going fast, she began dragging her feet on the ground as we went round and round.  I asked her why was she doing this, since it was slowing us down.  She told me that she hated this certain pair of shoes and so she was trying to wear them out.    This was shocking to me, since shoes were difficult to come by.  We usually had only two pair of shoes, one for church or fancy programs and one for school, and maybe some hand-me down old work boots or shoes for doing farm chores in.  These ugly shoes were called, "clod hoppers" and were usually too big for you.  Actually any big clunky shoes were called "clod hoppers."

Stamps for Shoes

During World War II, shoes were rationed.  You had to have a shoe stamp issued by the government that you were required to give to the store if you wanted to buy shoes.  Sometimes there were shoes sold that didn't require a stamp, but they were usually summer sandals with soles made out of cardboard stuff and didn't last long at all.  I think you might have gotten only one stamp a year.  

The town we lived in had no stores that sold shoes.  We had to go to Holbrook that had a J.C. Penney store, a Babbitt's,  and a Schuster's.  We also used Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogs for buying clothing.  Sometimes my parents went to Phoenix, usually to see a doctor if my mother was pregnant and they would buy needed supplies there including shoes. I remember standing on a paper while my mother traced around my foot so as to get the correct size of shoes.  Sometimes this tracing was given to another relative who was going to Phoenix.

One year my mother wanted to buy my younger sister, Mary Alleen, a pair of plain black shoes with laces. She ordered them from the catalog in the size shown for for my sister's foot.  Only my mother made a mistake and ordered shoes that only came in adult sizes.  When they arrived, they fit my older brother and he had to wear them because you couldn't waste them especially since they cost a stamp.  

Since my sister still needed shoes, my mother, then, ordered black patent leather Roman sandals with buckles up to the ankles.  When they came, they were in baby sizes and my younger brother who was just learning to walk had to wear them.   My older brother's shoes looked reasonably like boys shoes, but I remember being embarrassed  by the Roman sandals on my baby brother's feet.  I do not know if my mother ordered anymore shoes from the catalog or not.  I suspect she took my sister in person and bought her shoes from the J.C. Penney's in Holbrook.

 (Alleen adds:  "My total memory of shoes at that time is Dad coming home from Clifton --or wherever he was working.  It seems he was gone for a few days at a time.  He brought a little box with him and had me sit by  him on the couch when he opened it up.  There was a little pair of black Mary Janes that fit perfectly!  He Must have taken on the project of getting shoes for me after all these other disasters.")

Saddle Shoes             

When I was in sixth grade, brown and white saddle oxfords were really in style and I really wanted a pair.  I got a pair of brown and white shoes, but they weren't saddle oxfords and I really hated them.  My parents had brought them home hoping to make me happy, but they didn't realize that just any old brown and white shoes wouldn't substitute for the fashion fad of the day.  

Besides, these particular brown and white shoes were very difficult to polish.  Polishing shoes was a weekly Saturday chore at our house.  Every one's shoes had to be polished for Sunday.  This memory tells me that we didn't always have two pairs of shoes because we were polishing our everyday shoes so they would look nice for Sunday.  I had this job on many a Saturday.  The baby shoes were usually white and I remember that the white shoe polish would rub off on your clothes when you held the baby on your lap in church.

Up the Down Staircase

Another memory of shoes that I have is after we moved to Phoenix and I was in high school, my mother gave me a five dollar bill to buy shoes at Lerner's on the way home from school.  The shoes were black ballet slippers which were the current fad and cost three dollars plus tax.  Well, that day I had some photographs in my wallet and near the end of class I showed them to my friend sitting next to me.  Other people wanted to see the photos and so they were passed around.  The bell rang and we all went down the north stairway which was designated as the down staircase.  After I reached the bottom of the stairs, I discovered that my five dollar bill was missing from my wallet.  I turned immediately and started up "the down staircase" hoping to retrieve it. (Of course, one of my classmates had stolen it.) I was grabbed immediately by a teacher and got yelled at for going up the down staircase.  By this time, I was almost in tears and tried to explain about my five dollars.  I think that I got a detention slip over the whole thing.  I don't know if I ever got the beautiful ballet slippers or not, but I did fully understand a movie title that came out shortly thereafter, called, "Up the Down Staircase." 

No Shoemaker's Elves, Just My Dad

Shoes often wore out even before you outgrew them, since the soles were made of leather.  When you got such a big hole in your shoe that your socks were showing, you cut a piece of cardboard to slip into your shoe until you father could resole the shoes.  My father was a cattleman and did his own butchering, so he had cow hides which he would send away to get tanned.  These cowhides could be cut into belts or replacement parts on ranch equipment. Once he made me a three ring binder from some of this cowhide.  He burned a cowboy design on the front of it. 

 Now, back to the shoe story.  The thickest parts of these hides were used to resole shoes.  He would cut and trim the leather to fit the bottom of your shoe and using an iron shoe last to support your shoe he would trim away the old sole of your shoe and glue and tack on the new sole.  This was especially money saving on cowboy boots, which were very expensive to buy.  I don't know of him ever making an entire shoe.



This is similar to the shoe last that my father had except there were  two interchangeable feet. The toe of the shoe was pulled over the toe of the last when he was nailing the half sole on or if he was fixing a heel, he would slide the shoe heel onto the heel, so the exact size didn't matter that much.  My father did not have a cobbler's bench, just this iron last  attached to the inside of a small box containing hammers, tacks, strong thread and glue.  I think he just used his pocket knife for cutting the leather, but he may have had some other sharp tool for tapering the leather down near the instep area.

Cowboy Boots

Since we all rode horses, there were an abundance of boots that lasted through several kids and even down to the grand kids.  They were thought to be necessary when riding on a saddle so that your feet didn't slip through the stirrups and get caught when you fell off the horse and thus get dragged to death.  (Although this sounds improbable, one of my classmates in Snowflake did indeed get killed in this very manner.)  The kids saddle came equipped with a guard so that feet could not slip through the stirrups.

This is a similar children's saddle made by Porter's.  Ours had a leather guard over the front of the stirrup to prevent children's feet from going on through.

This is the Porter's logo that was on their saddles and other items.
  

Boots were purchased at Porter's store in Phoenix.  It was where saddles were purchased as well.  After we moved to Phoenix, my father went to a sale at Porter's and came home with many pairs of boots in all different sizes.  These were kept at the ranch and no one owned any particular pair of these boots.  At the beginning of summer, you would find a pair that fit your feet and you would then have ownership of those boots just for that summer.  Boots were also great as protection from rattlesnakes that were abundant on the ranch.  My own children wore some of these boots when they went to the ranch with their grandparents, years later.  Some of these boots may still be at the ranch, but my  brother no longer keeps horses there, but uses motorcycles instead.  I don't think you need cowboy boots to ride on motorcycles.

Missing Snow Boots

You asked about the frost bite.  In fifth grade, an unusually big snowstorm came and piled two feet of snow on the ground in Snowflake. My mother was staying in Phoenix waiting for the baby to be born.   I was delivering the papers on foot and we did not have any snow boots.  We did have rubber galoshes which came up to your ankles and snapped around.  Since the snow was two feet deep, this would not keep my legs dry. 

 My father's solution was for me to wear two pair of pants and he wrapped bailing wire around my pants tightly to hold them down to my galoshes.  The result was that as I stepped down into the snow, some was forced up above the tight wired place and couldn't fall out as I made the next step.  Each step added another bit of snow above the wire until I had a packed ring of ice around both legs.  By the time I arrived home from delivering the newspapers, I had a frozen ring of skin on both my legs which resulted in huge reddish brown scabs that lasted several weeks.  

I remember that in the middle of January we went to Phoenix to see my mother because the baby still hadn't come.  My mother had one look at my legs and was appalled when she heard what had happened.  My legs healed up and you could never see any scars until I was past 75 years of age, when the outer layer of my skin became so thin that you could, again, see the scars where my legs had been frozen.

I think that I have just emptied out my "shoebox" of  memories.  Knowing how my brain works, more stories may come to me.  Once I have given my brain the command to search for shoe stories, it is likely to come up with a few more and will alert me at any time.