Just a “Very Lucky Shoemaker”
Candy Puterbaugh
BILL CRARY WALKED A LONG WAY IN STORE-BOUGHT SHOES BEFORE FINDING THE KEY TO HIS FUTURE. After a tragic start in life and many detours, at 30 he finally unlocked the door to Crary Shoes, where he created handmade shoes for others with difficult journeys. Thanks to Bill’s soul-searching, many of his customers have traded in wheelchairs and walkers for sturdy, handmade, custom-fit shoes.
“I’ve always wanted to help people,” he says. “I’d see others with foot problems wearing store-bought shoes that didn’t fit and kept them from taking part in life. I wanted to make their lives easier. Today I’m a dinosaur. Not many make shoes like this from start to finish. We’ve become the premier orthopedic shoe-manufacturer in the country.”
Indeed, he’s been sought out by some very discerning clients. A few remarkable commissions include size 23 shoes for Shaquille O’Neal to wear in a movie, clown shoes for a television show, and even shoes for a penguin with a birth defect.
About 90 percent of Crary footwear is made for medical needs, with most clients referred by physicians. Many diabetics seek him out, as well as those with arthritis, traumatic foot and war injuries, club feet, and amputations.
Some he has served since his start 45 years ago; currently about 80 returning or new customers are welcomed each week, some from other countries.
His first customer was a dockworker who’d been electrocuted in a storm.
“Someone made boots for him that looked like the ones Frankenstein wore!” Bill recalls. “He was missing toes, so I made cowboy boots that fit his narrow feet. He cried when he could get off the couch and back to work. I still make his boots twice a year.”
Years ago, Bill helped a two-year-old whose foot had been run over by a lawnmower, leaving just a stump. That now 18-year-old kid has played baseball and is a state champion wrestler in Idaho.
Initially, Bill specialized in cowboy boots because they were popular. Gradually he stepped into orthopedic shoes, filling a void. Seeing feet so deformed that his scanner couldn’t handle them, he developed a method that worked. He says he loves solving problems, and developing shoes that look stylish not orthopedic.
The shoemaker’s eyes light up as he gazes around his shop, filled with leather skins, machines for cutting, sewing and finishing, and an entire wall of foot molds.
“Special materials, skilled construction and good leather make better shoes,” he says. “I can make shoes and boots from anything legal — elephant, ostrich, calfskin, kangaroo, snake, and eel. My favorite is alligator — I love the way it looks. I’ve also made both anteater and kangaroo golf shoes.”
When just in shoes himself at age three, tragedy struck. Bill’s father, awarded the Silver Star for bravery, was killed in the Korean War. Years later his mother married Bill Danner, famous, for Danner Boots.
“I was very lucky to have such a wonderful stepfather,” Bill says. “Shoes and boots became part of my world at 13, and by age 27 I ran half the factory!”
While he enjoyed football, baseball, and swimming, Bill hated school. Narrowly missing entrance to West Point, his dad’s alma mater, he scrambled to find his niche in the working world.
“I was always looking for a father figure,” he says. “I had many mentors. Even though I loved and admired my stepfather, it’s born in you without a father to always look for a father figure.”
Stepping out on his own to open Crary Shoes in 1978, he found that father figure in a Syrian man who applied for a job. “We didn’t speak the same language, but we both spoke shoe! He was brilliant and worked for me 25 years.”
Bill says he had no idea what he was doing when he opened his small shop. But a contract to make slipper bottoms for Eddie Bauer — 35,000 pairs — got his first year moving.
Today Bill’s staff of seven includes his daughter and president of the company, Meredith, and wife Jill, a retired physical therapist who helps as needed.
“I really work for Meredith!” Bill says. “She’s smarter than me and handles the paperwork, which I’m not good at. I’m happy making shoes.
But what stands out in my life is my wife, five children, twelve grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. . . and building a family business my children are passionate about. I’m a very lucky old shoemaker.”
Candy Puterbaugh is a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, groan-inducing punster, writer, competitive runner, pet lover and tender of gardens.