Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1889-09-12
A WOMAN COBBLER.
A Daughter of ST. Crispin Working
at the Bench.

Can you tell me where Mrs. Gill lives,
little girl" was the question New
York Press reporter asked yesterday of a
flaxen- haired urchin in Mulberry street,
after he had spent fruitless hour in
search for that lady.
"You mean Mrs. Gill, the shoemaker,
do you Z" replied the urchin, and when
the reporter said that was the very per
sonage he was looking for. the child
pointed down the street, indicating
where the only woman shoemaker in
Now York was to be found.
The reporter had little difficulty in
reaching Mrs. Gill's little cobbler's shop
in one of the tenements in the rear of
old st. Patricks Cathedral. There was
little to d ,tinguish it from the ordinary
cobb.er's rtall, except, perhaps, an un
wonted tidiness and II pretty ornament
hore and there that at once bespoke u
womans taste. Mrs. Gill herself rose
from her cobbler's bench, where she was
busily engaged i'll mending pair of
child's shoes, to greet tie reporter, and
when he said he only dropped in to have
quiet chat with her she wiped stool
with the corner of her apron and asked
him to be seated.
He saw in this one brief moment that
Mrs. Gill was n woman that might be
possibly 80 years of age, gray haired and
pleasant faced. She was evidently quite
ready for chat, and began by say
ing that she had been tod she was the
only woman shoemaker of the old school
in New York, or perhaps, the whole
United States. She said she wouldn't
vouch for this being absolutely true. but,
however, she had never heard of any
other woman following the trade at the
bench.
"Of course" she glibly taxed on, with
very little prompting, "there are hun
dreds of women working in the modern
shoe factories, but any of them would
be insulted if they were called shoe
makers. Now, I glory in being q men,
Eet of st. Crispin's gentle craft, and,
though the shoemaker Of the olden time
has long since been pushed to the wall
by modern inventions, l propose to stick
to the bench to the end"
"Were you regularly apprenticed to
the trader" ventured the reporter.
81 was born to it," proudly replied
the old woman. "My father was a Shoe
maker of Northampton, England, when
it was the great shoe emporium of tho
old country, and I learned tho trade as
naturally rs duck takes to the water.
watched my father by the hour. and
when he saw what taste 1 had for
leather he fostered it more to humor me
than in any hope that would ever mas
ter the craft. But | did, and before I
was IA years of age 1 made pair of
shoes for my mother that don't think I
could better now. When 1 was old
enough / went to work in factory in
Northampton at shoe fitting, and L
worked in Massachusetts factories after
my father came to this country in 1868.
l have been working here nearly ten
years and have all that can do, as you
may see, )" and the old woman swept
the little shop with wave of her sturdy
arm.
"My work is the ordinary run of work
done in any cobbler's shop. L repair
mems women's and childrens shoes,
und may say 1 have the entire mending
of the neighborhood to do. Sometimes,
perhaps from curiousity, l have call
from fine lady to mend her own Oh her
children's fine shoes, and L have never
had any one to find fault with my work. I"