A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for Reuben Roland Paul Faus
His first name is spelled Reuben and Ruben in different places. I'm not really sure which is right.
Borger News-Herald, 19 Nov 1981 (obtained from Find A Grave, listing for Ruben Paul "Rube" Faus):
SPEARMAN - Rube FAUS, 77, died Wednesday.
Services will be at 2 p.m. Friday in Union Church with the Rev. Steve Rogers, pastor, officiating.
Burial will be in Ochiltree Cemetery by Boxwell Funeral Directors.
He moved to Spearman in 1910.
He was the owner and operator of Rubes Boot Shop since 1932.
Survivors include five daughters Rosa STEELE of Vernonia, Oregon, Juanita PIERCE of Spearman, Phyllis MANN and Bertha Elene WILLISON, both of Gage, Oklahoma, and Ruby SALTMAN of Amarillo; a son, Harry FAUS of Fountain Valley, California; a sister, Ella BUSHMAN of Alex, Arkansas; 26 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
"Faus Genealogical Data" (1961) said:
Reuben Roland Paul Faus is at present a shoe-repairman, but formerly in the earlier days was a shoemaker and boot maker, as Cowboy boots were in demand in Texas. It has been said that Henry Faus the First was also a Bootmaker along with his work as Farmer, etc.
Perryton Herald, 11 May 1962 (obtained from rubefaus.PDF on the L.D. Pierce website; a few minor corrections made by MLW):
Rube Faus Boot Maker Doesn't Make Boots Now
by Mel Marshall
Spearman-- When he closed the order book number 100 after checking off the completion of 5784 pair of hand-made cowboy boots, Rube Faus decided he had made all the boots a man should make in 30 years. That was six years ago, and Rube has not cut leather for a pair of boots since. He spends all his time keeping boots and shoes in good condition.
There are plenty of ranchers and farmers on the North Plains, though, who are still wearing boots Rube made for them. "I get a pair in to fix every now and then," Rube says.
"A good pair of hand-made boots will last a man 20 years or more. But mostly, what I work on now is shoes and factory boots. Nothing wrong with factory boots, of course, but they don't compare with hand-made boots."
Rube Faus got into the bootmaking business 36 years ago, when a bad crop year made him decide to quit farming. He had heard that Leon Bowling wanted to quit making boots in the shop Bowling owned in Spearman, so the two men sat down to dicker out a trade.
The deal was closed with an agreement to swap. Rube gave Bowling a 1929 Chevrolet Roadster, two cows, two hogs, five horses, a couple sets of harnesses and a trailer. Bowling turned the shop, a four-room building with living quarters included, all machinery in the shop and a stock of leather--NO cash.
Bowling agreed to stay with Rube to teach him the trade, before taking off for New Mexico. But after working with Rube on two pair of boots, Bowling had to leave to close the deal for the bean farm he'd bought and Rube had to make it himself from then on.
He did. The day after his teacher left, a customer walked in and ordered a pair of boots. [Note from LD Pierce, Rube's grandson--this customer was Jim Cator's nephew] Rube made them and they fit. So Rube didn't worry any longer about not being able to handle the job he had taken on. During the next quarter of a century he turned out boots of all shapes and sizes, accumulating a supply of over 500 boot-lasts, which he still has, stored in the back of the shop he operates now strictly for repair work.
"Most of the lasts are for special customers," Rube muses. "Like the fellow who stood 7 feet tall and wore a size 15 shoe. And a lot of them are for ladies' boots, and little-bite lasts for children's feet. I used to knock 10 percent off the price for those tiny sizes."
Rube explains: "A man who buys hand-made expects them to fit perfectly, so I built up a last, using thin strips of leather, until I got the exact shape of his foot. That job takes a lot of time and when I'd made a pair of special lasts I'd just put them aside with the customer's name on them, because I'd figure he would want another pair sooner or later."
Hand-made boots are made by stretching the lining and uppers over the last with special pliers, tacking the uppers and lining to the insole as the bootmaker works around the edge of the last. When the leather is stretched--the tension must be just right so the uppers will hold their shape and be neither too loose nor too tight--the edge is welted and the outer sole is sewed on.
Then the last is removed and the uppers stiched to the boot. It is a painstaking job, because each piece of leather is slightly different, and the bootmaker works by feel and judgment.
"I got the hang of it pretty quick, I guess," Rube chuckled. "Most of my regulars would just stick their heads in the door when they'd pass the shop and just yell for me to make another pair.
"Half the time they didn't even say what color they wanted, and they knew I'd make brown. They liked brown or black or even tan, or whatever. And most of them wouldn't even try their boots on when they came to pick them up. They'd know the boot would fit."
When Rube Faus began making boots, the going price was $15 a pair, special fancy jobs running as high as $25. When he put aside his lasts, the minimum price was $65, with the fancy decorated jobs running over $100.
Rube still recalls some of the strange orders he got for fancy boots--especially during the five years he set up shop on Fourth Street in Amarillo. He filled some orders for some wild designs--boots with all white tops, or barber-pole stripes of alternate colors, or designs of playing cards around the top, and even one pair with the inserts of bluebirds made from dyed suede.
We never used to patent a design, he says. "A man came in with a pair of boots he liked and I'd copy them--just as I would expect a bootmaker somewhere else to copy one of my designs somewhere else if a customer asked him to. Of course, on the really fancy jobs, nobody who wears boots would want a pair like somebody else had."
For a hobby, Rube plays the fiddle. "Keeps my hands busy," he explains. "I guess it's a little bit like working with leather. But I'll never get back to bootmaking," he adds.
I quit that because I could not find help, couldn't find anybody interested in doing the kind of hand work the job needs. I guess leather workers are what you would call a dying breed. There's not many of us left any more, and no young fellows coming along to take our place.
"So I'll just stick to keeping boots and shoes in shape, and let them factories turn out the boots from now on."
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
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