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Honored novelist ran Maling's shoe chain
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Matthew Kruk
Nov 25, 2013, 3:00:10 AM11/25/13
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http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries/23936894-418/honored-novelist-ran-malings-shoe-chain.html
Honored novelist ran Maling's shoe chain
BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter November 24, 2013 6:58PM
Updated: November 24, 2013 9:51PM
Nobody would confuse the shoes at Maling's with Manolo Blahniks.
But for many Chicago women of a certain age, Maling's was the place where their
shoe obsessions began.
The chain, with its flagship store at 231 S. State, stretched from Chicago to
Wisconsin and Oklahoma.
Cute but cheap, its shoes outfitted generations, from 1920s flappers who would
have dubbed them "the cat's meow" to 1970s women who found them "foxy." Whether
for prom, graduation or a wedding, Maling's was, as their ad slogan said, "Where
the Fashionable Find the Affordable."
The retailer was started in 1912 by five German immigrant brothers. As each
died, the others bought out their shares. Maling's eventually ended up in the
hands of Arthur Maling, the only child of Albert Maling, one of the founders.
Arthur Maling headed the company in its later years, until it was sold in the
1970s.
Maling's had knockoffs before anyone even used the term.
"They went to all the designer shoe [stores], would buy them, and they went to
one of their plants, copied it," said Arthur's son, Michael Maling. "They made
it cheaply so they could sell it cheaply. We had a plant in Italy and one in
Boston."
The windows beckoned, their shoes displayed like toothsome sweets.
"I was always a shoe person, and I think Maling's was the start of it," said
Marsha Brenner, executive director of Chicago's Apparel Industry Board. "This
wasn't something you did with your mom - you went with your girlfriends to shop
for the sharpest or the coolest because they had it, they really did. Those of
us that were babysitting. . . .you could really save your money to buy a pair of
shoes that your mom wouldn't buy for you because they were fancy or weren't
sensible."
But selling shoes was never what Arthur Maling really wanted to do. He wanted to
write.
As a kid at Francis W. Parker School, he won $25 in an essay contest. At Harvard
University - where he graduated magna cum laude in three years - he won another
writing competition.
In 1967, "bored out of my skull," he hauled out his typewriter and started
writing, he told the Chicago Sun-Times in a 1988 interview.
"He would get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, write till 8, go to Maling's,"
said his son Michael. "He would come home at night and sleep."
He produced 14 whodunnits. In 1980, his book "The Rheingold Route" won an Edgar
for best novel, a coveted award bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America.
Named for Edgar Allan Poe, it's been dubbed the Oscar for suspense authors.
Mr. Maling, 90, died Oct. 24 at his home in the John Hancock Center, surrounded
by the lake views he loved.
His smart and single-minded mother helped set the course of his life. A daughter
of German immigrants, Alma Gordon Maling was one of the first women to graduate
from the University of Texas in 1920, said Maling family attorney Harry B.
Rosenberg.
Michael Maling said that when his father was a kindergartner, Alma Maling went
to Francis W. Parker and asked: "What courses does he need to take to get into
Harvard?"
Mr. Maling found his way into the family business at his mother's insistence.
After serving as a naval ensign during World War II, he worked as a newspaper
reporter in California. Alma Maling - missing him but also concerned about how
his absence was affecting the shoe stores - went west to retrieve him, Michael
Maling said.
"She went out there and wouldn't leave until he came back," he said.
Mr. Maling married Beatrice Goldberg, whose family founded Goldberg's Fashion
Forum, a Chicago chain. They later divorced.
He learned the shoe business from the bottom up, started out by fitting
customers with shoes, his son said.
Once his writing took off, Mr. Maling was known for crafting descriptive
passages like this one about a Lincoln Park apartment in "Lover and Thief," a
mystery featuring private eye Calvin Bix: "He was neat, health-conscious and
vain. The bed was made, shirts and underwear were folded and stacked in their
separate drawers, and shoes were in a compartmented bag. There was an alphabet
of vitamin pills in the medicine cabinet; all the packaged foods on the kitchens
shelves were of the sort that's supposed to be good for you; the linen closet
had few linens in it but lots of stuff to make skin and hair look nice."
Mr. Maling enjoyed traveling to research settings for his mysteries. "He would
go to a place like Amsterdam, stay for several months," Rosenberg said.
John le Carre was his favorite suspense author. A big fan of maestro Georg
Solti, Mr. Maling was a patron of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric
Opera and the Art Institute.
Services have been held.
Email: modo...@suntimes.com
Twitter: @suntimesobits
Honored novelist ran Maling's shoe chain
BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter November 24, 2013 6:58PM
Updated: November 24, 2013 9:51PM
Nobody would confuse the shoes at Maling's with Manolo Blahniks.
But for many Chicago women of a certain age, Maling's was the place where their
shoe obsessions began.
The chain, with its flagship store at 231 S. State, stretched from Chicago to
Wisconsin and Oklahoma.
Cute but cheap, its shoes outfitted generations, from 1920s flappers who would
have dubbed them "the cat's meow" to 1970s women who found them "foxy." Whether
for prom, graduation or a wedding, Maling's was, as their ad slogan said, "Where
the Fashionable Find the Affordable."
The retailer was started in 1912 by five German immigrant brothers. As each
died, the others bought out their shares. Maling's eventually ended up in the
hands of Arthur Maling, the only child of Albert Maling, one of the founders.
Arthur Maling headed the company in its later years, until it was sold in the
1970s.
Maling's had knockoffs before anyone even used the term.
"They went to all the designer shoe [stores], would buy them, and they went to
one of their plants, copied it," said Arthur's son, Michael Maling. "They made
it cheaply so they could sell it cheaply. We had a plant in Italy and one in
Boston."
The windows beckoned, their shoes displayed like toothsome sweets.
"I was always a shoe person, and I think Maling's was the start of it," said
Marsha Brenner, executive director of Chicago's Apparel Industry Board. "This
wasn't something you did with your mom - you went with your girlfriends to shop
for the sharpest or the coolest because they had it, they really did. Those of
us that were babysitting. . . .you could really save your money to buy a pair of
shoes that your mom wouldn't buy for you because they were fancy or weren't
sensible."
But selling shoes was never what Arthur Maling really wanted to do. He wanted to
write.
As a kid at Francis W. Parker School, he won $25 in an essay contest. At Harvard
University - where he graduated magna cum laude in three years - he won another
writing competition.
In 1967, "bored out of my skull," he hauled out his typewriter and started
writing, he told the Chicago Sun-Times in a 1988 interview.
"He would get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, write till 8, go to Maling's,"
said his son Michael. "He would come home at night and sleep."
He produced 14 whodunnits. In 1980, his book "The Rheingold Route" won an Edgar
for best novel, a coveted award bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America.
Named for Edgar Allan Poe, it's been dubbed the Oscar for suspense authors.
Mr. Maling, 90, died Oct. 24 at his home in the John Hancock Center, surrounded
by the lake views he loved.
His smart and single-minded mother helped set the course of his life. A daughter
of German immigrants, Alma Gordon Maling was one of the first women to graduate
from the University of Texas in 1920, said Maling family attorney Harry B.
Rosenberg.
Michael Maling said that when his father was a kindergartner, Alma Maling went
to Francis W. Parker and asked: "What courses does he need to take to get into
Harvard?"
Mr. Maling found his way into the family business at his mother's insistence.
After serving as a naval ensign during World War II, he worked as a newspaper
reporter in California. Alma Maling - missing him but also concerned about how
his absence was affecting the shoe stores - went west to retrieve him, Michael
Maling said.
"She went out there and wouldn't leave until he came back," he said.
Mr. Maling married Beatrice Goldberg, whose family founded Goldberg's Fashion
Forum, a Chicago chain. They later divorced.
He learned the shoe business from the bottom up, started out by fitting
customers with shoes, his son said.
Once his writing took off, Mr. Maling was known for crafting descriptive
passages like this one about a Lincoln Park apartment in "Lover and Thief," a
mystery featuring private eye Calvin Bix: "He was neat, health-conscious and
vain. The bed was made, shirts and underwear were folded and stacked in their
separate drawers, and shoes were in a compartmented bag. There was an alphabet
of vitamin pills in the medicine cabinet; all the packaged foods on the kitchens
shelves were of the sort that's supposed to be good for you; the linen closet
had few linens in it but lots of stuff to make skin and hair look nice."
Mr. Maling enjoyed traveling to research settings for his mysteries. "He would
go to a place like Amsterdam, stay for several months," Rosenberg said.
John le Carre was his favorite suspense author. A big fan of maestro Georg
Solti, Mr. Maling was a patron of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric
Opera and the Art Institute.
Services have been held.
Email: modo...@suntimes.com
Twitter: @suntimesobits
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