Like Cinderella, Carol Mefford’s romance depended on a shoe.
When Carol graduated from high school in 1969, she followed in the footsteps of other local graduates and got a job at the International Shoe Factory in Windsor.
She was working downstairs in the warehouse, she said, gluing insoles into shoes, when Morris Phalen came down to visit. Morris, a line boss in the finishing department, kept dropping by. A coworker told Carol that Morris was going to ask her out, which he did.
It led to a lasting relationship.
“I met this lady at the Shoe Factory,” Morris said at a factory reunion last Saturday. “We’ve been married for 52 years.”
Morris and Carol were two of several dozen former employees of the International Shoe Factory who attended the 90th anniversary reunion and lunch at the Windsor United Methodist Church. Hosted by the Windsor Historical Society, the reunion was moderated by Glynna Morse, who gave a overview of the factory’s history before inviting people to share their memories.
When the factory opened in 1931, she said, it was an economic lifeline for Windsor during the Depression, she said.
“This is 90 years from the day the factory actively produced shoes,” Glynna said.
Windsor had to compete with other towns to get the factory, Glynna said, but had the advantage of already having a shoe factory building — the former Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company, next to a railroad siding. The shoe factory were located on Colt Street, five blocks north of downtown and a few blocks west of Benton (Hwy. 22), the main cross street in Windsor.
Even with the advantage of a building, the town was asked to raise $87,000 to bring the shoe factory to town, Glynna said, which in 1931, was the equivalent of $1.8 million today. The newspaper printed a long list of donors. Most of the donations were small ones, she said.
In 1956, Windsor celebrated the factory’s 25th anniversary. The factory held a Silver Anniversary Queen contest, nominating a representative from each department. The winner was Berchie Mae Flippin, who rode in a float shaped like a silver slipper in the anniversary parade, Glynna said.
“Everybody got paid in silver dollars during the silver anniversary,” Gerald Barrow recalled.
Gerald said that he goes back to the “light bulb hanging on a wire” days of the factory. He worked in the bottoming department, where the soles were sewn and waterproofed. Others worked in the lasting department, stretching the shoes onto lasts, and sewing and sealing them. Bill Simmons remembers being on a school tour of the factory, where he was impressed by the speed with which a man held up a large piece of leather and cut shoe pieces out of it.
The factory prospered during World War II, Glynna said, after getting a contract to make combat boots and military dress shoes for the Russian army. The Windsor factory operated around the clock to meet orders, supplying 47 percent of the combat boots and military dress shoes for the Russians during the war.
George Shephard’s mother, Grace Lloyd, worked in the fitting room during those years.
“She said she never saw such enormous shoes,” George said.
Gwen Hix was 15 when she started working at the factory in 1954. When the company found out her age, she said, she was fired, but rehired when she turned 16. Gwen worked as a skyver in the cutting room and was paid 75 cents an hour. A skyver beveled the edges of leather.
You had to meet a quota, but after that, were paid extra per piece.
“You could make $1 an hour if you worked fast,” she said.
Gwen’s daughter, Brenda Espen, went to work at the shoe factory for two summers in the mid-70s after high school. She made $2 an hour.
“I paid for college and my first car,” she said. “When my parents worked there, it put a roof over our heads and food on the table.”
Bill Simmons remembered employees coming to the bank at noon on Friday to cash their weekly paychecks — usually $17 or $18. Gwen Hix and Gerald Barrow remember being paid $30 a week and clearing $26.20 after taxes.
People who worked at the drugstore in Windsor also recalled employees coming in on Fridays to cash their paychecks, and into the grocery store to buy groceries. When banks were shuttered during the Depression, International Shoe Factory executives had to go to Jefferson City to get cash to pay employees with. Glynna Morse said the factory benefitted the whole town, as people who worked at the shoe factory, including her two aunts, boarded in town.
The downside: the factory was no air-conditioning — the heat was smothering in the summer, and the factory was freezing in winter. The day shift started at 7 a.m. and finished at 3:30 p.m.
Tom Colwell recalled that both his parents worked at the factory after his family moved to his grandmother’s farm in Calhoun in 1946. When the farm road was too muddy to get the car through, his parents would get up, do the chores and walk two miles to the paved road to get the company bus that took workers to the factory.
After working their shift, they took the bus back and walked the two miles home, he said. It wasn’t long before his mother insisted the family buy property on a paved road.
“If you knew my mother, you’ll understand this,” Tom said, adding that when he graduated from high school, he applied for a job at the shoe factory, but “bless their hearts, they didn’t hire me.”
Walter Mosier recalled that the chemicals used at the factory were so caustic, his father had to wrap his hands in
Vaseline at night to heal the blisters.
The shoe factory soldiered on through the 1970s and the first half of the ‘80s, relying on government contracts for military footwear. The boots were shipped out by train to St Louis, where the company was incorporated.
According to company history, inmates at the Missouri State Penitentiary were paid 30 to 50 cents a day to make shoes in the early decades of the 20th century. St. Louis was once known as the city of Shoes, Blues and Booze.
Marshall, Sikeston and Sweet Springs also had International Shoe factories. After the company merged with others, the company became the largest shoe manufacturer in the country.
The money raised to bring International Shoe Factory to Windsor proved a good investment, providing area residents with wages for more than 50 years. It also drew families to settle there who were displaced when Bagnell Dam was built in the late 1920s. The factory provided social activities as well as wages, Glynna said — there was a baseball team, company picnics and outings by bus to Kansas City.
Carol married Morris in April of 1970, and worked at the shoe factory until they started a family. Morris left in 1974 to work at the hospital.
Seven people at Saturday’s reunion were working at the Windsor factory in May of 1985, when they were informed that the factory was closing. Although there were rumors, the news was devastating.
As each department’s work on the last order was finished, the workers were ordered to dismantle the machinery, Glynna said.
“By June 20, 99 percent of the workforce was gone,” she said. “It was the end of an era.”
The factory buildings were eventually razed. What’s left: the memories, a marriage and a boot, on display at the Windsor Historical Museum.
The museum, 214 Benton, is open Sundays from 2 p..m. to 4 p.m. There is no charge to visit. Tours can be arranged on other days. Call Dennis Carter, 785-224-8956.
