Gordon Freireich

Hobo is a word you do not hear these days.

A hobo, according to the dictionary, is “a homeless and usually penniless person who wanders from place to place.”

For decades, hobos have been associated with jumping on and off moving trains to get from one destination to another while carrying a stick with a bindle attached to it over his shoulder. There is almost a romantic aura surrounding hobos.

One source says a poetic explanation for the word “hobo” may be a contraction of the words “HOmeward BOund.”

The York County History Center now has a piece of hobo history: a pair of hobo boots.

The footwear -- a pair of Kips Brogans -- was purchased by Edward Molenaux from Ed Reineberg’s Shoe Store, then located close to Continental Square more than 100 years ago.

After his years of wandering, Molenaux returned to York and the well-worn boots made their way back to the Reineberg’s store, probably around 1910.

Across the years and several Reineberg’s shoe locations, the boots have been put on display.

Ed’s great-grandson, Bob Reineberg, donated the boots and some other antique shoe-related items to the York County History Center when he closed the Reineberg’s store in the Haines Acres Shopping Center this past January.

Bob Reineberg surmises that as Molenaux travelled around the country, he would stop “at harness shops for spare scraps of leather to repair his boots.” With the patches of leather nailed to the boots, they were to last Molenaux a long time.

The original shoe size, Reineberg estimates, would have been a 9 or 10, or smaller. However, with all the patches attached, the boots look much larger and took on a Frankenstein’s Monster-type appearance.

Walking in the shoes must have been difficult: the right boot now weighs 9 pounds, 8 ounces and the left one 8 pounds, 5 ounces.

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The boots are such an oddity that they were written up by R. J. Ripley in the 1920s or 1930s for “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” a very popular information source.

Ripley wrote:

This curious looking pair of shoes was originally a pair of men’s Kip Brogan’s and was sold at Ed Reinebergs Shoe Store to an Edward Molenaux, a wandering gentleman of leisure.

After 10 years had passed, this tramp or hobo returned to the York County Home where he spent the remainder of his life. Appreciating the great comfort he attained through this pair of shoes, he resolved never to give them up. In pursuit of this resolution, each day as he passed by bits of leather on the road he began to attach these pieces as patches until they reached such a magnitude that he was finally able to nail the pieces on the vamps with eight penny nails without injuring his feet with the points.

Rachel Warner, Director of Collections for the York County History Center, is attempting to find out information about Edward Molenaux. No records with his name have turned up in her search to date. The hobo boots, as they have come to be known, will probably be put on display at the History Center sometime in the future.

Bob says, “I had some people who wanted to buy” the hobo boots, “but I decided to donate them where they could be on display.”

Bob Reineberg, 70, is enjoying his retirement. Now that the shoe store has closed, Bob says he works around his house and on projects at his church, Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Columbia.

Pieces of the family’s store past – especially a pair of hobo boots -- will now be a unique and permanent addition to York County history that will provide a glimpse of the sole – and the soul – of a hobo.

Gordon Freireich is a former editor of the York Sunday News. Email: gordonaf2805@gmail.com.