Shoe Making Demonstration At Historical Society Open House

On Sunday, May 25, Newtown Historical Society will welcome Greg Geiger to its headquarters. Mr Geiger will demonstrate the ancient art of shoe making during this month’s open house at Matthew Curtiss House, 44 Main Street in Newtown. The event will run from 1 to 4 pm and admission is free.

Mr Greiger arrived at his love for shoemaking via a love for Fess Parker and everything about Davy Crockett (he was, according to notes in his new book, one of the kids who wrote the angry letter to Walt Disney because he showed Davy Crockett getting killed at the Alamo back in 1954). His parents abetted this interest by taking him to Frontier Town and Fort William Henry. He soon began making moccasins and, by 1975, he became an apprentice shoemaker on Long Island at Bethpage Village Restoration. For the Bicentennial he began making reproduction shoes.

Mr Geiger says there is a distinct difference between a cobbler, who repairs shoes, and a cordwainer, or shoe maker. In England cobblers were a lesser guild; members were not allowed to make shoes.

Mr Geiger was also a history teacher. He taught for six years, during which time he met Anne, to whom he has been married for more than 20 years.

His next career step was to become an author, and in 1977 Mr Geiger published his first novel, Diverse Adventure: A Legacy Found. The book came as a result of a family vacation in 1955, when Mr Geiger was six years old, as were articles written for Muzzle Loader magazine, and for the living history journals Muzzle Blasts and The Buckskin Report.

His second novel, A Season of Purpose, concerns a family that lives in Newbury, between Newtown and Brookfield, during the French and Indian War.

What convinces a woodsman to become a Ranger, or a farmer to take up arms, or a shoemaker to become a profiteer amid the backdrop of war? What goes through the mind of a woman during these events, or an Indian who floats atop a tide of change he cannot control?

Mr Geiger’s new release weaves a plot around two Connecticut families that get caught up in the war as they establish homes and families in the Connecticut colony, form a company of “Adventurers” to smuggle goods to new France, join up with the local militia, go on scouts with Rogers’ Rangers, and confront the ugly face of war during the battles of Lake George and Fort William Henry. Through it all, each character struggles to find his own purpose in the grand scheme of life and the world.

The book offers a look at the personalities of real historical figures and Connecticut men and women, as well as the local Mohicans who fought at their sides and the spirited partisans of new France who might have been their friends under different circumstances. It took Mr Geiger nearly five years to write A Season of Purpose,

The 536 page paperback is published by Heritage Books and retails for $25.95 (ISBN 0-7884-2300-2.