My Biz: Shoe business is a family tradition

If Rich Foens hadn't hated yard work so much, shoe wearers in Linn County would be much worse for the wear. At least their shoes would be.

“I started working in my dad's shoe repair shop in Davenport when I was nine years old,” he recalled. “Young people were expected to work in those days, but I hated yard work and I let my dad know that I didn't enjoy doing it, so he said, ‘Fine, from now on you come to the shop with me in the morning and you don't have to do yard work.'”

The predisposition for shoe leather flows through the family.

“My grandfather worked in what they called a lathe factory - where they made the wooden lathes the shoes are made on. That's an original sample of the Howdy Doody boot he designed,” Foen said, indicating a miniature boot resting next to a Howdy Doody doll in a glass case.

“My grandmother was a superintendent at Brown Shoe Factory in St. Louis, and my mother worked there as well, until she got married.”

Another uncle was the head buyer for the men's shoe department at Boyd's in St. Louis, the largest men's shop in the country at the time.

Foens, 73, has worked full-time in the shoe repair industry for the last 55 years, since graduating from high school in Tipton.

“My dad started fixing shoes during the Depression - there were no jobs,” he said. “We - my dad, my mother and I - averaged 650 pair a week. If we didn't work, we didn't eat.”

In the early days of his career, he never did any of the horse harness work as so many small town repair shops did, but he did fix his share of combine canvasses and heat housers that went around the tractor to shield the farmer from the elements. But these days he sticks mainly to repairing shoes.

“This building has been a shoe repair business site for 80 years,” Foens explained. “Frank Smith was the originator of this business, and then his boys took over when he retired.

“I bought them out in 1983 and decided there were no advantages in changing the name.”

Foens had owned a shoe repair shop in Tipton before then.

“Business remains steady,” he said, adding that “The young professionals are buying better, more expensive shoes and repairing them when they need it.

Owner: Richard J. “Rich” Foens

Company: Smitty's Shoe Repair

Address: 684 10th St., Marion

Phone: (319) 373-1201

Elevator Pitch: If the shoe fits, repair it.

Know a manager or company that's been in business for at least a year that should be considered for “My Biz”? Contact business editor Michael Chevy Castranova at michael.castranova@sourcemedia.net.