The Pensacola Journal

Cleo Keeps Pegging Away and Goes Well Heeled.

Many of us can be our own milliners or dressmakers if the occasion demands, but Cleo Mayfield is the only woman I know who can be her own shoemaker as well.

When she needs new pumps she buys the raw material--satin, suede or French kid--gets out her last and goes to work and makes them.

"I learned to make my own shoes in order to get what I wanted," she explained.

"I got so tired of trying to tell shoemakers, most of whom did not speak my language and I couldn't speak theirs, what I wanted, so finally in desperation I got an Italian cobbler to teach me how to make them myself.

"I put in about a year of honest apprenticeship before I learned how to turn out the finished product, but it was worth it. Now I not only can copy any shoes I see, but I can carry out my original designs."

First Russian Boots.

Miss Mayfield has originated several styles in shoes. She made the first pair of Russian boots to be shown in this country, and she designed the shoe which laced in the back instead of the front.

She has made several pairs of riding boots, and during the war she made moccasins which were sent to soldiers instead of knitting socks.

"I hate knitting," she confessed. "I couldn't knit a pair of bed-room slippers for any amount of money, but long before I really learned to make shoes I used to make leather baby boots out of the tops of my old white kid gloves.

"Even now I frequently make a pair of slippers out of the good material in an old brocade evening frock or part of a discarded satin frock. By making my shoes out of the very best materials they wear splendidly.

About Ten Days.

"It usually takes me about 10 days or more to make a pair, and during the year I make about a dozen pairs for myself, and several for my friends. Shoes that would cost me $15 in the shops I can make for about half that amount. And they give me double the service."

Miss Mayfield has another unusual fad. She is papering the billiard room of her summer home with canceled postage stamps.

During the year she saves all the stamps she gets on letters, and people who know of her fad send her large supplies of them.

She mounts these on large squares of cardboard, which she tacks to the wall.

This gives a queer mosaic effect that really is much more decorative than it sounds. She expects to finish this year.

"I have to keep myself occupied when I'm not on the stage, and shoe-making and paperhanging seem best suited to my talents," she concluded.