Down on the farm

Down on the farm
Out of the woods.

Friday, January 27, 2012

The Fancy Lady's Shoes

Grandpa Campbell was, among other things, a shoemaker. He worked in a shoe repair shop right across the street from where he and Grandma lived, just off the Court House Square in Union, MO. When I was there, Grandma and I would take him his lunch, a tin of sardines and a sleeve of soda crackers. It was never different and it must have been what he wanted as no food that Grandpa didn't like would appear in that house.
One day while they sorted out the lunch I found at the bottom of a dark dusty bin an old pair of leather high button shoes in a bright red and yellow spatter pattern. I had never seen such things in my life! I coveted those shoes even more than the mary janes my mother would not allow me to wear. (Bad for my feet, she said.)
To my astonishment those shoes came home with Grandpa one night and were packed away in my suitcase to take home.
Who was the "lady" who brought them in to be repaired and never came back? I was a child during WWII and such shoes had not been worn for 40 or more years, at least by a fancy lady! Where is the back story when you want it?

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