Nebraska woman amasses a huge collection of shoes

Não, o título acima não se refere a mim, pelo menos não ainda, haha! Quem sabe daqui a alguns anos... A reportagem é sobre uma senhora de 81 anos que mora numa cidadezinha chamada Hastings aqui em Nebraska (eu preciso conhecer essa mulher). Ela coleciona sapatos há quase 70 anos (e não 60 como diz o texto) e tem atualmente mais de 300 pares (só?). Será que ela tem alguma Melissa? Acredito que não, porque as Melissas são classificadas aqui nos EUA como de largura média e ela precisa de sapatos estreitos. Reparem no tamanho dos saltos para uma senhora da idade dela:

“If the shoe fits, buy it in every color.”

While that may just be a slogan crocheted into a throw pillow in the front room of her home, self-proclaimed shoe lover Wihlma “Billy” Price admits she has taken the advice a time or two.

“A couple times I have done it and I wish I’d done it on more,” she said. “It breaks my heart when a shoe wears out.”

Price, 81, has loved shoes from her teenage years when she bought her first pair of shoes in a store.

When Price was a child, her parents were forced to order specially made shoes for their daughter, who had very narrow feet. Price would have her foot measured in a store and six months later a pair of shoes in that size would arrive on her doorstep. By then, the shoes were a bit snug on her feet, so they would do the process all over again to get her another pair of shoes.

“It wasn’t until 1943 when the saddles came out and saddle shoes were the first shoes that made a narrow width shoe,” Price said. “That was the first time I ever bought my shoes over the counter. I was 14. When I could finally buy shoes over the counter, I was hooked.”

Today, Price has literally hundreds of shoes filling the numerous closets throughout her home at 1410 Pershing Road.

“I laugh because I say I’ve got to keep my mind because I’ve got to remember where my shoes are,” she said.

For more than 60 years, Price has been amassing a collection of shoes including pumps and sandals from around the world, made of everything from silk and satin to cork, eel skin and denim.

“You didn’t know they could made denim looked so dressed up, did you,” Price asked, holding up a denim high heeled sandal.

Price bought her first pair of 3-inch heels in 1946 while visiting San Francisco. The shoe was called the Babydoll and featured 3-inch heels.

“Now they’ve got four and four and a halves, but nobody is going to be able to wear those,” Price said, shaking her head. “They’re too high.”

Price said her secret to being able to wear high heels almost every day for so many years is those shoes she wore as a child. The specially made shoes Price had started with a half inch heel and increased in height to an inch and eventually an inch and a half.

“I’ve always been used to it so it was no big deal to move into higher heels,” she said.

The oldest pair of shoes that Price still has in her collection are a pair of dainty gold sandals she purchased in 1959 when serving as grand page for the Order of the Eastern Star.

She has several pairs of Italian made shoes, a pair of white beaded pumps from Hawaii and shoes from almost every place she’s ever visited.

“I can let anything else go, but I have to go home with a pair of shoes,” Price said.

Several years ago, Price decided to make something of her shoe collection and started giving presentations to various social groups and clubs about shoes. She talks about the history of shoes, things that shoes are made of and a little bit about her own collection.

To each program, Price said she takes about 30 individual shoes. With more than 300 pairs, she rarely takes the same pair twice. That excludes a few specific ones she includes like the ones made from cork, eel, snake, crocodile and ostrich.

Price admits that even today she still has a hard time finding shoes that fit her size 7 narrow foot.

“I get a lot of catalogues. I go through them to see if there’s something I can wear. Then I look at what the sizes are and then I think, ’Oh, there went that.’ ”

Price receives eight to 10 shoe catalogues on a regular basis, but said there’s only one company in St. Louis where she can order shoes and know they will fit properly. The problem, she said, is so many shoe companies only carry medium and wide-width shoes.

“The catalogues are getting fewer and fewer that do narrow width,” Price said.

While her choices appear to be dwindling, Price said she still loves the hunt and the joy of finding a new pair of shoes. Price’s footwear is even a topic of conversation among her friends.

“We always laugh because somebody says, ’I never look to see what you have on. I always look at your shoes first,’ ” Price laughed. “We’ve had a lot of jokes about my shoes.”

Fonte 1 e Fonte 2