If you’ve got something made of leather, whatever it is, chances are Anton Schleicher can repair it. He might even improve it; Anton has, after all, been doing this since 1949. He was 14 at the time, and still living in a small village in Carinthia in his native Austria. He apprenticed as a cobbler for three and a half years and in no time was able to put his skills to work. Anton says that in 1953, he stayed up till midnight every day making three new pairs of shoes and saved up to buy a motorcycle in 1954 – something they still remembered when he visited his homeland in 2011. “I was very well established back home with my trade,” explains Anton. “I made good money, bought a brand new motorcycle.”
Flash forward to the year 1954. That’s when Anton first began to hear talk of America. Curiousity got the best of him and eventually, in 1956, he decided to see for himself what others were talking about. “[I] sold the motorcycle, bought a ticket with the boat and came here to Toronto, to see America,” he says.
Once in Toronto, he found work as a cobbler at a shop on Bay and Adelaide. He did well for himself, but four and a half years later decided the time had come to return to Austria. There, he furthered his skills with a Master’s degree in shoemaking. But Toronto beckoned, and in 1961 he moved back to the city. He married in 1964 and settled into life in Canada for good.
