Then and Now
Baby’s First Steps At iconic Sills Shoes, a good fit makes for great memories
By Carole Perkins
While cleaning out my
attic recently, I opened a pale blue box I hadn’t seen in years. Nestled inside were three pairs of white, sturdy baby shoes, dubbed Walkers for being the best fit for a baby’s first steps. I smiled to myself as I took each pair of my three daughters’ Walkers out and found the size stamped on the supple leather inside the shoe. One pair had the size 4D on the left shoe and 4E on the right shoe, measurements taken by expert shoe fitters at Greensboro’s iconic children’s shoe store Robt. A. Sills Co. Inc.
I fondly recall the small gurgling fountain in the store window and how my daughters loved tossing coins into it. Green leather couches, circa 1960, lined one wall. Another wall featured black-and-white scenes of Old Greensboro in the 1800s and 1900s, including pictures of the store in four of the five locations it’s occupied since the company’s founding in 1905 as Ward Shoe Company. Namesake Robert A. Sills managed the store for years and changed the name to Robt. A. Sills Co. Inc. when he bought it in 1922. After World War II, Sills’ son Walter took over the family business. In 1964, the store was moved to Irving Park Plaza. That same year, the elder Sills died and Walter Sills became owner. Well-known around town for his appreciation of history, Walter Sills decided to sell only children’s shoes, having developed a great interest in the proper fitting of children’s shoes during the polio epidemic in 1948 when he helped fit shoes on children recovering from polio. When the younger Sills died in 1999, his longtime assistant David Newnam became manager. Newnam fondly recalls how as a teenager, he and Walter Sills would ride around town, with Sills pointing out landmarks and places where people he knew had lived. “He was huge into Greensboro history,” Newnam says. “That’s why we have pictures of old Greensboro here in the store. Walter even wrote and published two books that were memoirs and anecdotes of his time growing up in Greensboro. Whatever funding he made from the book sales went straight to benefit the Greensboro Historical Museum.” Except for the ages of Newnam and long-time employee Terrie Jarrett, little has changed about the shoe store over the years. That’s especially true of the personable and personalized service. Newnam straddles a green leather stool so he can
The Art & Soul of Greensboro
measure the feet of a 4-year-old girl named Reagan. “Whatcha been doing this morning, Reagan?” he asks. “That sure is a pretty bow in your hair.” As Newnam goes to find the right size shoe for Reagan, she jumps from her spot on the sofa to Newnam’s stool. “Hey, you’re in my seat!” Newnam playfully chides as Reagan jumps back to the sofa next to her dad. “Can I wear my new shoes home today?” Reagan asks her parents. They agree and she picks out a red balloon, which Newnam blows up for her. Customers Andrea and Damon Smith sit patiently on the green leather couch. Both parents were brought into Sills as children, and they continue the tradition with their four boys, ranging in age from 6 months to 9 years. “You can’t find shoe companies like this anymore,” Andrea Smith says. “You just don’t get this kind of service anywhere else.” As Jarrett is measuring the boys’ feet, Newnam gives them lessons in how to perform magic tricks. The boys look on in rapt fascination as he appears to remove the end of his finger — and then miraculously reattaches it. He then shows them how it’s done. “It’s all about doing it the right way,” he tells them. That’s the kind of philosophy that keeps Sills in business despite competition from chain shoe stores, big-box retailers and Internet providers. In the mid-1990s, the peak of Sills’ success, customers had to take a number when they came in and hope for a spot on the couch. Things have slowed down a bit, not so much because of the recession, Newnam speculates, but because people don’t dress up as much as they used to. For Newnam, the need for a separate store that sells children’s shoes is simple: “As an adult you know how your shoes are supposed to fit, but children won’t be honest. Sometimes they say they fit just because they like the shoe.” Sure, you can buy shoes for less at any number of places, he says, “but we provide a guarantee that the shoes will fit properly.” Newnam, 60, is determined to keep the store afloat. “I’d like to keep it going as long as I can,” he says. “Somewhere along the line you don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m too old to make changes to the store, but if someone else wanted to take over and make the changes, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.” I think about change, uncertainty and getting older as I place each of my daughters’ Walkers lovingly back in the pale blue box, thinking that if this box could talk it would tell the tales of twenty-some years of laughing girls who pursed their lips and blew bubbles from plastic rings in the driveway of their childhood home, only to move into a fancier home where trouble sneaked up and dealt a hard blow. I wish I could buy them Big Girl Walkers to steady their feet in turbulent times. I wouldn’t mind a pair myself. In the meantime, like the toddlers trying on their Walkers from Sills Shoes, we will find our way, one baby step at a time. OH Carole Perkins, who can be reached at CPGuilford@aol.com, loves telling stories, in print and in person, about her hometown, her children and The Avett Brothers band. September 2013
O.Henry 45