Dad's Shoe Store...

A drawing I made probably in 4th or 5th grade

I had mentioned that my dad had managed a shoe store. Well for those who can remember here is a picture of it. It was located downtown beside the Equity. I think the theater was across the street. Out back of the shoe store was the Erie Canal. It was cool to go down and play in his store. It was a really big deal when he had to trim the windows. Trimming the windows was like decorating a movie set. Everything had to be just right. We would be there for hours while he and mom layed down material, positioned shoes, went outside to look at them in the window then back inside to adjust them. Later on the company would decide to just have one person go around and trim all the stores windows for them. The one thing I did like about the store and I miss to this day was the fact that they carried Ked's Tennis Shoes. 100% US of A cotton canvas in red, white or blue. Best tennis shoe I ever owned. Can't hardly find them now and when I do they are so high priced I pass them up. Dad had the the biggest shoe store and smack in the middle of downtown. He liked retail. I remember he belonged to the Delphos Jaycees. He eventually became the president. I was pretty proud of him. He wanted to be involved, he wanted to be a part of Delphos. He got to know a lot of people. I remember during the summer all the businesses would crank out their awnings so as to provide shade. Big things those awnings were. Maybe while the customer was cooling off in the shade provided by the awning they would do a little window shopping also. During the dog days of summer when business was slow the managers would drift out to the sidewalk and chew the fat with each other under the awnings. Dad also chaired the Franklin School carnival one year. That was the same year they bought a merry-go-round for the school playground with the money they made from the carnival that year. I was riding it one day while some kids were pushing it and somehow I got my leg jammed up underneath it so while the merry-go-round was rotating and it wedged my leg in there just right and snap. Broke both fibia and tibia just above the ankle of my left leg. How I kept from passing out to this day I have no idea. My ankle swelled up like a balloon. Off to Dr Belt's office. Back then he had an X-ray machine and so he had a diagnosis in no time at all. Home for 3 days with an ice pack to get the swelling down then a cast for 6 weeks. Good as new. That wasn't the last bad injury I was to have on that playground.

Epilogue;
Dad left Schiff Shoes and we moved from Delphos to Lima during Christmas vacation while I was in the 5th grade. Schiff Shoes changed their name to Gallenkamp somewhere in the late 60s early 70s. I worked for them after I moved to Lima. Got hired in my senior year in high school. My dad's old boss, Sam Smilan, hired me. Cantankerous as hell. I was with them until the early summer after graduation and then I moved on. Gallenkamp hung on for another few years and then finally closed their doors for good.



Published: New York Times February 12, 1994

Saul Ben Schiff, once a leading executive in the shoe industry, died last Saturday at White Plains Hospital. He was 96.

The cause was heart failure, said his daughter, Barbara Passloff of Scarsdale, N.Y.

Mr. Schiff was the past president of the A. S. Beck Shoe Corporation and a founder of Schiff Shoes, which eventually became SCOA Industries.

He was also an ardent supporter of Israel. In 1968, to create jobs there, he formed the American Israel Shoe Corporation, a footwear manufacturer with a factory in Bat Yam, Israel.

A co-founder of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Mr. Schiff was also a director of the Bank Leumi Trust Company and a former chairman of the Greater New York Fund's shoe retail division.

In addition to Mrs. Passloff, Mr. Schiff is survived by his wife of 66 years, Mollie S. Schiff, and two other daughters, Carole Straus and Simone Englander, all of Scarsdale; 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.