Fixing Shoes the Old Fashioned Way

The grey paint on the plywood floor has been worn away where Felix stands. Ranges of bare wood reveal the compass of his days, in front of the edge trimmer, metal fast, heel sander, finishing machine.

His name is not Felix, although that is what most of his customers, and occasionally even his wife, call him. Born in 1936 in Greece, Christos Soillis left home at the age of 11 to become a shoemaker. His family paid the apprentice school tuition in olive oil because they had so little money.

On his second day in this country, in 1963, he visited Harvard Square and told himself that one day he would own a show repair store here. he liked being around "young people, smart people, all sorts of kinds of people, poor people, rich people, all the happy people. "He spoke only Greek, worked three jobs simultaneously, saved money. On Saturday and Sunday nights he worked in Harvard Square's Felix shoe Repair, then located in the Massachusetts Avenue lot occupied toddy by Gnomon Copy. In 1969 Christos bought Felix Shoe Repair from the grandson of the original owner.

The shop has since moved to a basement location beneath Ferranti-Dege. In the front room, a glass display case contains silicone spray, Lexol leather conditioner, stain protector, suede dye, wooden shoe stretchers Fiebing's edge ink, Cavalier leather balm, shoelaces, shoehorns, three dozen tones of Meltonian creme polish.

Felix spends his days in the back room with the worn floor. On a shelf, penny-loafers, hiking brogans, wingtips, tall black boots, high heels lie scattered in various states of disrepair, waiting to be doctored. The Calendar was a gift from the Lawrence Leather and Shoe Findings Co. The wall clock carries the legend "Neolite Soles and Heels." Nailed to the wall there is a horseshoe painted blue and white, the colors of the Greek flag. The horseshoe was a gift from a noted law professor, a regular customer.

One morning I visit Felix and the battered radio is tuned to a Greek station broadcasting out of Lynn. Felix wears black wool pants, a short-sleeved office shirt open at the collar, anonymous black shoes, and a blue denim smock smudged with glue stains. He is rebuilding the worn toe of a woman's two-hundred-dollar cobalt-blue Salvatore Ferragamo.

Shaking Felix's hand is like putting on a tight leather glove. His fingers are short, thick, powerful, with the nails trimmed close. Fingertips are black with polish, calloused, and scuffed like rough-cut pine. The skin is cracked splintered, not just on the tips but down the finger to the palm, He is strong, but not with the manicured muscles of the beauty parlor weight room. His barrer-shaped forearms have been built by forty years of intense, detailed work, banding thick leather to his bidding.

Felix tears the soles off shoes, pastes barge glue onto leather, hammers the new sole on and pares away the excess. His head angles forward after a lifetime of looking downward. Without interrupting the rhythm of his work he says, "So what questions do you have?" I ask him to talk about his work.

"I'm happy. I'm happy to be a shoemaker.Sometimes and I am so happy that I could dance. Ilove what I do. Thanks God I come to this country.I build a trust in people. People come to me fromall over. Look: the owner of these shoes come from802 area code-that's somewhere in Vermont.

"That's what I tell my son Steven. Findsomething you like to do. Some fathers tell theirchildren, 'Be a doctor. Be a lawyer. Be, be, be.'Not me. Money is good, but happiness is better."

Felix arrives at work at seven-thirty in themorning and works without lunch until eight ornine at night. Fifteen-hour days are not uncommon.After closing he will relax by working two orthree hours doing "reps," repairs on purses andbags and zippers, work on the sewing machine thatdoes not get finished during the day.

He answers the telephone and keeps on paintingthe soles with glue. A minute talking is a minutelost. Within reach are the tools of his trade:knives, pliers, punch, awl, pincers, hammers.There are a score of old shoe-boxes filled withvarious grades and thicknesses of leather andrubber. There is a box of scraps used to fill upthe hollow chambers is the heel of a woman's shoe.

A leather shoe has four main parts: the upper,the lining inside the upper, the insole directlyunderneath the foot and the outsole which scrapesthe pavement. Until the middle of the 19thcentury, all shoes were made by hand. Massproduction had to wait for the rival of a machinethat could sew the upper to the sole. Gordon McKayarrived in 1860 with the McKay sole-sewingmachine, an improved version of the one LymanBlake patented in 1858.

McKay could not have had better timing. TheCivil War brought him an order for 25,000 boots.He filled it. By 1873 his machines were turningout 50 million pairs of shoes a year. McKay becamerich and gave Harvard four million dollars, whichendowed not just one or two professorships, but anentire department--the Division of AppliedScience. Shoe technology has not changed muchsince McKay's time. McKay would recognize theLandis Aristocrat sewing machine that stands inFelix's workspace.

Felix was trained to build shoes from scratch.Now he does repairs only, but sometimes that meansrebuilding a shoe from very little. On hisworkbench there is a an English calf-high bootwith the soles ripped off, the welt in tatters,only the upper remains. "This job will take morework, I don't make no money doing this, but I knowthis customer long time, sometimes you got to putin special effort, and then he tells other people,other people, other people, and I don't need toadvertise."

More often, Felix is only asked to rebuild aheel or repair a sole. Customers often bring in anew pair of shoes so he can attach a rubber bottommade by Pirelli, the Italian tire company. Thisrubber bottom protects the leather sole from wear.Most jobs cost 10 or 20 dollars, but he works onshoes that cost $200 or $300, or more. Shoes asdressy as a Brooks Brothers suit but ascomfortable as a well-worn flight jacket. "My timeis your time. I'm gonna be taking the time toexplain to the customer what it is that I'm doing.That's why I'm working every night. I'm happy if Iwork because at least I'm gonna have more than Idid before."

St. Crispin, the patron saint of shoemakers,spread Gospel by day and made shoes by night. The3rd century Roman moved to the Aisne, northeast ofParis, and legend holds that he gave away shoes tothe poor. Some suggest that this Robin Hood offootware even stole his materials from the rich.In Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers,published in 1883, William Edward Winks writesthat "such tales are worthless," but honors St.Crispin as one of the first in a long line ofdistinguished shoemakers.

There was Sir Cloudesley Shovel, "The Cobbler'sBoy Who Became an Admiral"; William Carey, "TheShoemaker who Translated the Bible into Bengaliand Hindostani"; Samuel Drew, "The MetaphysicalShoemaker." John Greenleaf Whittier began as ashoemaker's apprentice and honored the occupationwith his ode, "To Shoemakers," not one of his moredistinguished works. ("Ho! workers of the oldtime, styled/The Gentle Craft of Leather!/ Youngbrothers of the ancient guild,/ Stand forth oncemore together!)

Winks drew inspiration from an earlier Americanbook, J. Prince's Sketches of EminentShoemakers, published in Boston in 1848.Prince reports that Roger Sherman, Connecticutsigner of the Declaration of Independence andConstitution, began life as a shoemakers. Whileserving on an appropriations committee during theRevolutionary War, Sherman uncovered fraud in anarmy shoe contract and proved his case byspecifying the market price of the leather andworkmanship. Prince argues, "This incident willserve to illustrate the advantage which may oftenbe derived from the election of practicalmen to fill the office of legislators." (Hisitalics.)

Felix believes in hard work. "As long as youcan move your hands, you are gonna have bread onthe table. In this business, you never starve, butyou don't make so much that you can retire." He isnot listed in the Yellow Pages because he alreadyhas all the work he can handle. In good times, 10or 12 pairs of day. Despite the recession, hecan't find good help. "The kids these day, thepeople, nobody is willing to work for $5, $6 anhour, they would rather get welfare than work."

He is honest with customers. If a $20 shoeneeds an $18 repair he tells them it isn't worthit. "Save these laces if they don't fit. Bringthem back and exchange them." But he jokes around,too. A woman comes in and Felix says I am his newboss. "This young man with the pad, he bought meout. He owns me now, I work for him." He tellsanother woman, a regular customer for 15 yearssoon to be married, "You gonna have to stop buyingexpensive shoes, you gonna have bambinos comingalong."

Felix speaks quickly, says everything threedifferent ways to make sure others understand, ahabit he acquired while learning English. "I buythe best materials, the best leather, it costs alittle more and I charge the customer, but theytrust me because I buy only the best, and I know alittle, just a little more about shoes than you,and I treat the customers with respect becausemaybe they come back and treat me with a littlerespect."

He is animated. Nailing a heel onto a shoe, hestops, looks up to the window and turns to me. "Ifyou are educated, things are different. It is aday, but it is a sunny day, or a rainy day, or asnowy day, you see, they are all a day, but eachis different." Felix is excited. He smilesbroadly, pleased at the thought. "Now, I'm noteducated. Maybe I have some street smarts becauseI've been on my own since I was 11, back in theOld Country.

"When I bought my business in the Square, therewas another guy, he charged 95 cents to fix asole, I charged a dollar. Everybody said, look atpoor Felix, he will go out of business and not beable to feed his family. But I used the goodmaterials and did a good job. Now the other guy isgone, and I still here."Sssquare shhhoes, sssquare shhhoes...fixthem things.