Shoe shop may rise from ashes of blaze in downtown Bangor

BANGOR – Yankee Shoe Repair weathered economic downturns and the flood of cheaper imported shoes that people could throw away rather than repair. It even managed to come out from under a debt of back taxes.

Then came last week’s fire.

Since Thursday, members of the Fowler family – who had four generations working in the store – watched as their business weakened and crumbled, a victim of fire and ice.

“You struggle all your life in a business like that,” said Phyllis Fowler, whose husband, Melvin “Red” Fowler, had bought the store in 1970 after having worked there for a dozen years. “It’s hard to see it go before your eyes.”

Located on Water Street, in the basement of the Masonic Hall, Yankee Shoe Repair had become a fixture to customers drawn by the store’s strong reputation. It was also a fixture for the Fowler family growing up.

As teenagers, the three girls – Kathy, Sue and Diane – worked on the front counter as well as did some finishing work like cleaning up the shoes. The store was how Kathy Fowler, the oldest, worked her way through beauty school.

It was where Aroostook County transplant Greg Thibeault brought in his cowboy boots for repair in 1984 and became enamored of Sue Fowler, who was working behind the counter. He asked her out when he came back for his boots, and they were married two years later.

Son Ed Fowler wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and practiced taking apart and repairing shoes under his father’s guidance, and even sometimes without permission when his father was busy elsewhere or with a customer.

Ed began by shining shoes and then moved up to repairs, starting even before he was tall enough to peer over the jack, the metal stand rooted to the floor over which the shoes were fitted so work could be done. He had to stand on a box to make himself tall enough, and he watched his father carefully, imitating his father’s actions.

Further bridging the generations, Ed Fowler’s 25-year-old daughter, Toni Fowler, had been working in the store at the front counters and putting the final cosmetic touches on the newly repaired shoes, as her aunts had done before her. Toni Fowler’s daughter, 7-year-old Taylor, helped run the cash register and processed credit card transactions.

The Thibeaults’ daughters, Sarah and Ashley, would sit on the steps watching their grandfather at work, much as their Uncle Ed had done.

Shoe repair ran in the family, and for Red Fowler, it wasn’t something he could give up easily. It was his trade for 63 of his 83 years. Well beyond when many people would consider retiring, Fowler still went to work although he wasn’t able to do as much as he once did.

Whether financially viable or not, Ed Fowler wanted to keep the shoe repair store open at least as long as his father was alive. He wanted his father to be able to wake up any morning and go to work at the family business.

But last week, this family affair came to a dramatic end as firefighters fought to save as much of the building while trying to minimize damage to neighboring buildings and structures.

One of only about a half dozen shoe repair businesses in the state, the Yankee shop faces its most difficult challenges ahead, and Fowler is uncertain whether he will reopen. The business had no insurance that they could use to recover their losses.

A couple of years ago, Ed Fowler took over daily operations from his father. He discovered that taxes going back several years hadn’t been paid and that the insurance had lapsed. Through hard work, a three-year financial plan to pay the taxes and bring the business back into firm standing was accomplished in 18 months, and Ed Fowler said a priority this year was to reinstate the insurance, a costly endeavor.

Ed Fowler was on the scene about a half-hour after the fire was first reported – about 8:30 p.m. – and he stayed until 2 a.m. He’s been back every day.

“It was our family’s business being destroyed,” Fowler said. “It was almost a need.”

Early on, Fowler admits, he saw little hope for the family business. But as he’s spoken to people, he’s been reminded of how important the store has become, providing memories for not only his family but the customers as well, some who remember the sights and sounds and smells they took in during visits to the shop with their parents decades ago.

Over the years, the company has developed a good reputation that has continued to attract customers from inside and out of the state. And they stood behind their repairs, even though they were told it would be a costly endeavor.

Chris Downs of Bangor remembers bringing in a pair of motorcycle boots to the shop for repair in 1979. Over the next two decades, Downs wore the boots from time to time, just enough to need a return visit to the shoe repair store in 2001 for new heels. During casual conversation Downs mentioned that he had had the same boots repaired there two decades earlier.

Fowler wouldn’t let him pay for it, insisting that “we fixed them here, we fix them for life.”

The fire is not likely to be forgotten. It burned through the historic Masonic Hall, a brick building that was steeped in rich architectural heritage inside and out. It made national headlines as papers across the country displayed photographs of the burned out building hauntingly covered in snow and ice.

Doug Comstock will remember the fire. He retains the ticket stub from a pair of brown leather shoes he dropped off Jan. 15, the morning of the fire. He may have lost his shoes, but he admits with a smile and a laugh that he now has a small story to tell.

Ed Fowler, too, has a story or two to tell and he hopes that the story will continue, although he’s not sure how.

“When I saw [the fire] I thought, that’s the end,” Ed Fowler said. “I don’t think that anymore.”