James Luther Lashmit was born in 1872. He grew up on a “one-horse” farm in Forsyth County. When he was young, he attended the old free school at Flat Rock and high school at Siloam and Boonville. When he was not in school, he worked in the fields on the farm. Luther was small in stature, and it became obvious to him that he was not sized appropriately to handle the daily tasks that were required on a farm.
James came to Winston in 1892 and took a job at H. D. Poindexter’s General Store on Trade Street. He worked here for three years, then changed to Schouler’s Department Store on Liberty Street, where he worked for six years.
At Schouler’s Department Store he worked three years in a variety of departments, and then he worked three years as manager of the shoe department. He commented that he “could accomplish as much in a day’s work as men much larger that I, because I can sell as much as a man who is heavier built.”
In 1903, James opened his first shoe store on Liberty Street, near his previous place of employment. This was the first store devoted to shoes in Winston. He moved his business to the 300 block of Main Street, but stayed there only a couple of years before returning to Liberty Street. It was then that his name was printed in the sidewalk in front of his store at 415 N. Liberty Street. According to the 1918 booklet, “Winston-Salem, City of Industry,” Lashmit adopted the cash system of doing business in 1915, “making it possible for him to sell on a very close percentage of profit.” The article also mentioned that he owned a branch store in High Point.
In 1934 he moved to 438 N. Trade Street. He retired in 1958, when he was 85 years old. He said that he was tired of opening his store six days a week.
During his more than 50 years in the shoe business, James saw many trends in shoes and fashion. When he began selling shoes, they were made with brass toes and hand-pegged soles. That was in the days when the wearing quality was more important than the looks of the shoes. They were once made of pure leather by hand craftsmen, but even in the 1930s practically all shoes were machine-made, frequently of synthetic leathers. He said that styles changed so frequently that there was little reason to make shoes that would wear indefinitely.
Also, at one time the color choices were limited to black, white, and shades of brown. Then more colors were added to the available choices, to match the prevailing clothing styles.
In the early days of his career, women wore knee-high shoes and the men wore leather pull-on boots. Then came the button shoes with cloth tops. He recounts how girls who attended Salem College had to have a chaperone when they went shopping. He would fit a pair of shoes on the girl, and fasten a button or two at the bottom. Then the chaperone would take the girl behind a screen to button them the rest of the way.
James married Mary Snow in 1898, when he was 24 years old and Mary was 19 years old. Mary died in 1954. When James was 86 years old, after his retirement in 1958, he married Lillie Pearl Whitener, a 66 year-old widow. He made the comment after his second marriage, “there’s nothing like having a companion.”
James and Mary had two children, Luther Snow Lashmit and Dorothy Mae Lashmit Hall. Luther Lashmit was a well-known architect who designed Forsyth Memorial Hospital; the Fine Arts Center and Science Building at Salem College; North Forsyth, Parkland, and Mount Tabor High Schools; Knollwood Baptist and First Christian churches; Crystal Towers; and the Central Library. He also designed Graylyn for the Bowman Gray family and a contemporary home for R. J. “Dick” Reynolds Jr. and family.
James reached the 100-year-old milestone in 1972 and received a congratulatory telegram from President Nixon. James passed away at the age of 102 in 1975 and he is buried in Salem Cemetery.
Photographs courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection.
