Henry Ross, Master Shoemaker, `A Doer, Builder, Maker Of Things'

Henry A. Ross was carrying sacks of coal on his back to make a living during the Depression when his mother made a death-bed request of a son-in-law to teach young Ross the trade of shoemaking.

Mr. Ross developed the skill of a master craftsman, and whenever he opened a store in Seattle over his 50-year career, customers lined up "like honey had dropped from the sky."

"He was so good, so kind, so generous," recalled a nephew, Chick Tapin Jr., an active shoemaker whose father taught Mr. Ross the trade. "He had the hands to do the work and the mind to do the work, and they fit together like a glove."

He also had such high principles that it took only his glance for family members to right themselves and behave. Mr. Ross, who died Nov. 25 at age 81, was not a regular churchgoer. But he made a study of the Bible, filling notebooks with favorite passages and leaving one in tatters from handling it so much.

Mr. Ross did not preach, said his son, Ronald Ross of Sierra Madre, Calif. But he lived his life so forthrightly that other people felt a need to do likewise.

"His work ethic and his standards were very high," said Ross. "He lived them and he expected everyone around him to live that way."

How he came to develop that belief in hard work reflects what he observed as his parents struggled to make a living.

Mr. Ross' parents met when their paths crossed on the Oregon Trail in Walla Walla. The romance began some years later and continued with a decade-long courtship by letters. Marriage was delayed because Mr. Ross' father had promised not to marry until his own bedridden mother had died.

Eventually, Mr. Ross' parents opened a grocery store in Spokane, but his father was persuaded to sell by men who brought him samples from a gold strike that proved to be false. With their money gone, Mr. Ross' mother was forced to cook in logging camps near Spokane while his father worked as a logger.

"We went from one camp to another," said Mary Tapin, Mr. Ross' sister. "Between them they hoped they could rake together enough money to come back and open their grocery store, but hard luck seemed to strike them from then on."

The couple separated for financial survival and Mr. Ross' mother brought her children to Seattle, working as a saleswoman in a department store.

It was in Seattle that Mr. Ross eventually went to work carrying coal. His sister's husband, Chick Tapin Sr., was a shoemaker. Tapin promised he would teach Mr. Ross the trade.

"Henry was grateful for learning the trade that allowed him to live an independent life," said his sister, Mary Tapin.

He fell in love not only with Chick Tapin's trade, but also with Tapin's sister, Helen. They married in 1935. She died in 1976.

Mr. Ross worked for a while for Tapin, who had learned shoemaking from his father. He also worked at at Zinke's Repairing Shoe Corp., and Saad Shoe Repair in downtown Seattle before opening his own shop.

He worked six days a week, 10 hours a day, and periodically would have to quit because of bad knees and ill health. He had shops in Greenwood, Ridgecrest and finally retired in 1973 from Ross Shoe Service, 8906 Roosevelt Way N.E.

"Every time he'd open a shop it would be a roaring success," said Chick Tapin Jr., who owns Chick's Shoes and Service on Mercer Island. "He was the kind of guy whose word was his bond."

"He was a craftsman," said his daughter, Linda Lillywhite of Kent, who worked in his shop on Saturdays with her brother. "My dad was satisfied working with his hands, regardless of what it was. He was a doer, a builder, a maker of things."

One of his hobbies was building model ships. Another was mastering his computer after he retired. Six months before he died, he organized a Bible-study group at Valley Health Care in Renton.

If he had not had to go to work at an early age, he might have been a scientist, said his son, Ronald Ross.

"He was a tradesman but by intellect, he really should have been an inventor," said Ross, an electrical engineer who used to dream up math problems for his father to figure out. "He liked to work out the volume of the pyramids and the distance to the stars."

A funeral Mass was to be said this morning at Assumption Catholic Church. Interment was to follow at Holyrood Cemetery.