HAVE A SEAT: SHOE FACTORY WORKER RETIRES AFTER NEARLY 50 YEARS

You wouldn't find Lucille Sams sitting down on the job. For 48 years, the seasoned shoe factory worker held a job that had her standing on her feet.

But Friday was her last day on the job at the Florsheim Shoe Co. on Highway 74 in Cape Girardeau. At age 64, Sams with the most seniority among the plant's approximately 400 workers retired.

She was 16 when she quit high school and began working for the International Shoe Co. plant on North Main Street on July 12, 1945.

World War II was winding down. Germany had surrendered in May, but the war was still being fought in the Pacific. The first atomic bomb had not yet been dropped. It would be mid-August before Japan surrendered.

"Anybody got hired that wanted a job," Sams said, recalling there used to be a sign at the factory advertising jobs. "I went to work cutting shoes."

For nearly half a century, Sams has done basically the same job cutting leather pieces that go into the making of shoes. The cutting equipment has changed a little, primarily with the inclusion of more safety features. But the process has remained basically the same, she said. The worker places a metal die on the leather and a machine stamps out the piece.

During her career, she has gone from cutting out the leather for general shoe production to cutting pieces for the sample shoes that are used by the company's salesmen. Sample shoes are all size 8, she said.

Amid the din of countless stitching and cutting machines across the expansive factory floor, Sams and other employees diligently handled their tasks Friday. The factory operates on a piecework system, with employees paid on the basis of what they individually produce.

Unlike Sams, many of the workers have sit-down jobs operating stitching machines hour after hour.

Sams said the current plant is a big improvement over the old shoe factory in terms of working conditions.

Florsheim took over the International Shoe plant in 1965 and opened its modern, air-conditioned facility on Highway 74 in 1969.

Over the years, Sams has had a hand in making thousands of shoes. The Florsheim plant on Highway 74, which replaced the Main Street facility, currently turns out 3,300 pairs of men's shoes a day, five days a week.

While the Florsheim plant here makes only men's shoes, the company does have a line of women's shoes.

Ironically, Sams doesn't wear Florsheim shoes. She said they don't fit her feet.

Sams wears a comfortable pair of shoes, generally buying a new pair every year.

"It has really been interesting for me," said Sams, sporting a red-rose corsage in honor of her retirement Friday. "It doesn't seem like it has been 48 years."

The old brick factory on North Main Street, which has since been demolished, was not air conditioned.

At one time, about 1,200 people worked at the plant, which was one of the city's major employers.

"That was a big building," recalled Sams. The five-story plant, which opened in 1907, was also hot in the summer.

Temperatures regularly got over 100 degrees inside the building. "People passed out," she said. "You'd get too hot, and they carried them out."

Back then, more men than women worked at the factory, although sewing machine operators were all women, she said.

Sams worked on the fifth floor of the building.

"Years ago, there were less breaks than there are now," she said. People worked hard for their money.

"They started me out at about 30 cents an hour," recalled Sams.

Sams, who grew up in what was then Lutesville, said she's never regretted quitting school and going to work at such a young age. "Back then, it was normal. You were poor," she explained.

Sams quit school when the family moved to Cape Girardeau, where her father was employed with Superior Electric.

She said that she and her oldest sister went to work at the shoe factory. Sams said her sister "didn't last long," choosing matrimony over the job.

Sams married in 1949, but continued to work. Her husband, Clyde, worked for Ford Groves. He now operates a small business, selling used cars.

Sams said she's not ready to sit back in retirement. She plans to help her husband with his car business. "I think our sport is cars," she said.