The Strange Tale of Ethel Waterman and Why You've Never Heard of Her Before Now. (A completely untrue story - or is it?)

Many people don't know who Ethel Waterman is. If they did, she probably wouldn't be alive today; so it's a good thing she's rich and can afford to stay in seclusion and relative anonymity. You see, Ethel invented something that has been the bane of many a sports enthusiast. Ethel has been blind since her birth in 1923. Her father worked in a shoe factory as a foreman, and when the depression hit, he put her to work sewing the leather uppers onto the soles. Ethel proved so adept at it, she was soon doing as many as 50 pairs of shoes a day - always reaching right back into the barrel for another piece of leather.

One day, her father let Ethel know that the company was back in the black and they no longer required her services. Ethel tried to go back to school, but decided that she didn't like it as much as sewing shoes. She soon started ditching school to hang around the shoe factory - out of sight of her father, of course. She could always tell when he was coming by the sound of his shoes. She was in the back by the trash cans one day when she happened to feel some leather uppers just laying there. The more she felt them, the more she realized that the whole can was full! And not only that one, but another. She found a third can full of leather soles that had been deemed unsuitable because the bottoms were too slick. The company didn't want any lawsuits from people falling, so they had been discarded and waiting to be picked up.

Ethel reached into her pocket and pulled out her sewing kit and a spool of thread she had used when she worked inside. She soon began to sew shoes together. The left upper from one barrel, the right from the other. Pretty soon, she had a pile of shoes at her feet. Just then, a man was coming down the alley. She knew it wasn't her father, but not wanting to be caught, she ducked down behind the barrels. The steps slowed down in front of her and she heard him pick up a shoe and examine it. He started to go indoors, but saw Ethel crouching behind the barrels, needle in hand. "Did you make these shoes?" he asked. Ethel replied that she did, but that her father was inside and didn't know about them.

He paid Ethel $40 for all 20 pair of completed shoes, sent her back home with the money, then took the shoes inside to Ethel's father to ask if he'd duplicate them. Ethel's father, knowing that the scraps they had thrown away were perfect for the shoes, agreed to supply the man with every shoe they could salvage from the scrap. This decision cemented his destiny to own the company and his family never wanted for anything ever again.

Oh, by the way, the man in the alley was Ray Brunswick - the same Brunswick that supplies bowling equipment worldwide. Ethel's inability to see the colors of the leather in the barrels helped create the awful red & green bowling shoes that so many people despise today. Her current whereabouts remain a mystery - she also bowls in the 110's with a little help and doesn't care what the shoes look like.