Longtime Elgin businessman Tony White dies at 95

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Anthony "Tony" White of Elgin, 95, passed away Friday. He was a partner in Ettner's Shoes store from 1948 until 1959, when he opened Tony White Shoe Stores in Elgin. | Submitted Photo

Updated: March 17, 2012 10:17AM

ELGIN — The son of Italian immigrants, a sixth-grade dropout, Tony White overcame many obstacles to become a longtime pillar of the downtown Elgin business community during the center city’s heyday. And when anyone came to him in need of a meal or a handout, “he never forgot where he came from,” according to his son.

He died Friday at age 95 in his Elgin home.

White ran Ettner’s Shoes from 1948 to 1959. Then he and his son, David White, owned and operated Tony White Shoes on Douglas Avenue until the 1980s. David White also went on to operate David’s apparel shop; and David’s wife, Carol, ran a clothing shop named Carol D’s, all in downtown Elgin.

But his father’s origins were modest, David White recalled this week. He was born June 8, 1916, near Pittsburgh, Pa., with the name “Anthony Lobianco.” His parents were Italian immigrants who could barely speak English when they moved the family to St. Charles in the 1920s.

“My father was one of seven children,” David White said. “When he was in the sixth grade, his father left his mother. My father had to drop out of school and go to work.

“He never forgot the poverty he grew up in. On a daily basis, people who lived on Walton Island would come into the store, and he would buy them a meal at a restaurant where he kept a charge account. Ministers would call and say they had someone who couldn’t pay their electric bill, and my dad would pay it for the person.”

After becoming active in St. Laurence Catholic Church, David said, Tony also became one of the founders of St. Thomas More Church. “He and Bud Knott and some other members of St. Laurence went to the diocese and asked them to create a new Catholic congregation for Elgin’s far-west side.”

Drifting into shoes

David said his father changed his last name to White — roughly the English translation of “Lobianco” — when he was already an adult.

After becoming a Golden Gloves boxer, he moved to Elgin and worked at the Elgin Watch Case Co., making war materials through World War II. Laid off at war’s end, David said, his father drifted into the shoe business.

“He went to work for Walk/Over Shoes, which had a store in Elgin,” David said. “Pretty soon, he talked a friend into backing him to buy the Ettner’s Shoes store on Douglas Avenue. The big line in those days was Florsheim Shoes. This was a time when everybody wore suits and hats.”

It was a golden era for downtown mom-and-pop stores, he said. “Customers came to Elgin from Marengo, from Wisconsin.”

In 1959, Tony sold his interest in Ettner’s to the silent partner and opened Tony White Shoes a few doors away. Later changing its location to a different building along Douglas, he operated the store until he retired and turned it over to his son in 1979. As stores all around the downtown closed, it too finally went out of business in 1989.

Secrets of success

David credited his father’s success to unusual tactics with both customers and suppliers.

“If a woman came in looking for a pink cloth shoe to wear to some event, he’d say we have something like that, even if he knew we didn’t. Then he’d take off both her shoes, put them out of sight under the chair, and measure both feet, because almost nobody’s two feet are exactly the same size and shape.

“He’d tell the lady he had to check in back. He’d come back and say, ‘We don’t have a pair of pink ones in your size, but why don’t you try on this gray pair?’ It was like the door-to-door salesman who knows that if he can just get his foot in the door, he stands a good chance of making some kind of sale. And when the woman’s two feet turned out to be not quite the same size, he’d adjust one shoe to make them fit. People would say, ‘I have never had shoes that fit so perfectly.’ ”

Squeezed by price competition from big chains that could buy their shoes for much less, the Whites joined with 16 other Chicago-area stores to magnify their negotiating power with shoe manufacturers.

Terrific retirement

“My dad retired at age 62, and for 30 years he lived a terrific life,” David said. Tony’s first wife, Geraldine, died in 1988. He later married the former Ruth Metz, who survives him. Besides son David, Tony also leaves behind three daughters, seven grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.

David said his father’s health declined four years ago after he broke a hip and developed Parkinson’s disease. His final months were spent bedridden in his home.

A wake will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at Laird Funeral Home, 310 S. State St., Elgin. Funeral Mass will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Thomas More Church, at West Highland Avenue and St. Thomas More Drive, followed by burial in Mount Hope Cemetery in Elgin.