Muhlenberg County Kentucky
Local History: M
A real sole-saver
Elderly Greenville cobbler has encountered some pretty sorry (shoe) specimens
Greenville, Ky. - Homer A. Moore, who's been saving soles more than 55 years admits he'd brushed up against some pretty sorry specimens in his time.
“You just can't repair some of these cheap boots they make today.” the 75-year-old cobbler laments.
“They're just thrown together with a little cement, and what's more the heel and sole are molded into one piece.”
When the Muhlenberg County native opened his shoe-repair shop in 1920, he never met a boot he couldn't mend. His North Main Street shop frequently would be jammed heel-to-toe with customers delivering up crumpled, leather-cracked brogans for his diagnosis.
“I charged 75 cents for half-soles then,” Moore recollects, “but now the price is anywhere from four to six dollars,” apologizing because the price of leather “has gone out of sight.”
Forty-nine of his 55 years in the shoe-repair business were spent at two different locations on North Main. Six years ago he moved to a corner lot at 425 Hopkinsville St. where he's open 4½ days a week.
“I've slowed down a little bit so I close the place on Wednesdays and at noon on Saturdays,” says Moore.
When he was 14 years old, he quit school to work in the coal mines but, after four years, decided against this pursuit as a career. He moved to Akron, Ohio, and found work in a factory.
During his two years in Akron Moore also found something else - his future wife.
“I was lookin' for a place to board and the Walton family took me in,” he recalls.
Suppertime at the Waltons soon became a social event with Hattie Walton taking great care not to be late for the evening meal and the new boarder making sure his hair was combed and his manners beyond reproach.
“It wasn't long before I was askin' her to go to church with me,” Moore says. Shortly thereafter, he proposed.
“And wouldn't you know it, she accepted,” Moore winks.
They were married Aug. 5, 1919, at the home of the Rev. E.P. Wise of Akron, and ever since, have been as comfortable together as an old pair of shoes. In 1969, they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.
The Waltons originally were from Benton, Ky., and it took no time at all for the factory worker to convince his bride they should return to Kentucky.
In 1920, the couple moved to Greenville where he opened Moore's Shoe Shop.And folks began to see what a craftsman he was. Going at it hammer and thread, Moore kept busy getting acquainted with the shoe sizes of almost everyone in town.
Regardless of his workload, though, he always had time for a little chat.
“To have friends you've got to be a friend and I've always tried to live by the Golden Rule,” says Moore.
A Methodist, he's been a regular churchgoer for 60 years and has held the highest office in his Masonic Lodge as well as several other fraternal organizations.
He and his wife both have enjoyed remarkable health and, until last May when Moore spent three weeks in the Hopkins County Hospital having his gall bladder removed, the only occasions either of them spent inside a hospital were to welcome the births of their eight grandchildren.
“I'm healthy because my wife takes good care of me. She's as good a cook as God can make,” Moore brags with pardonable pride.
“I haven't been an angel, but I don't drink and I quit smoking cigars more than 15 years ago,” he allows, piling on still another reason for not having to pay any doctors' bills.
And trying to get Moore to worry about something is like trying to get a child to bed on Christmas Eve - there's hardly a chance.
“A friend told me one day that he'd give a thousand dollars if he could keep his cool the way I do,” he says.
But “keeping cool” never was much of a problem for Moore. The day of his birth - Feb. 14, 1899 - the thermometer plunnged to 21 degrees below zero.
”You can say I got a ‘cool reception,’” he laughs.
His customers will tell you, however, that there isn't a warmer-hearted person around than the elderly cobbler, whose skills are such that he fills orthopedic prescriptions as expertly as he drives nails into shoes.
No one around here wishes it were any other way because, for them, Homer A. Moore is their “sole support.”
Caption: Homer A. Moore, a 75-year-old Greenville cobbler, examines one of his well- hammers yesterday at his shop at 426 Hopkinsville St. An identation on the handle is the result of many years of “applied thumb pressure.” The grandfather of eight says he's done “a lot of heelin' and saved a lot of soles” in his 55 years as a cobbler. (Staff photo by John Maglinger)
Source: Maglinger, John. “A real sole-saver.” Messenger Inquirer [Owensboro, KY], 15 Nov 1974, sec. B, p. 1.
Updated July 18, 2022