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Charles Russell "Charlie" Dunn (1898-1993)〔U.S Census Records for Batesville, County, AR, list Charlie as one year old in 1900. His tombstone gives his birth date as September 19, 1898. Apparently the census was taken before his second birthday in 1900. Sources occasionally mistake his birth year as 1895, e. g., obituary, Austin ''American-Statesman'' (?), September, 24, 25, or 26, 1993.〕 was an American bootmaker of handmade Western, or cowboy, boots for more than 80 years. Dubbed the "Michelangelo of cowboy boots,"〔''Travel & Leisure'', November, 1988, 244.〕 he first gained widespread notice in the wake of Jerry Jeff Walker's song "Charlie Dunn" (1972). By the time he retired in 1988 from Texas Traditions, his shop in Austin, he routinely charged up to $3000 for a pair of boots, had a waiting list of hundreds of interested buyers willing to wait three years for delivery, and had made boots for a long list of celebrities, including Arnold Palmer, Mary Kay Place, Gene Autry, Slim Pickens, Don F Brooks, Harry Belafonte, Ernest Tubb, Peter Fonda, and Carole King.〔Obituary, ''New York Times'', September 25, 1993.〕 Don Counts, who owned several pairs of Charlie's boots and lured him out of a premature retirement, described Charlie as "a real character, an elflike creature who captivated everybody."〔Obituary, September 25, 1993, Fort Worth ''Star-Telegram''. For the role of Counts in bringing Charlie out of retirement, see Morris, 32, and below.〕 Known for his colorful language and broad sense of humor, Charlie in his customary black beret and cobbler's apron measured out at 5'4" and 135 pounds of pure imp.〔Obituary, September 25, 1993, Dallas ''Morning News''.〕 One friend noted that even though he was "quiet-spoken," he could "tell stories all day and all night."〔Robyn Turner quoted in Art Chapman, Obituary of Charlie Dunn, Fort Worth ''Star-Telegram'' September 28, 1993, 12A.〕 Folks may have come to him wanting his boots but they stayed because they wanted his affection. All who knew him well fell under his spell. When Charlie died at 95 from complications arising from a stroke,〔Obituary, September 25, 1993, Fort Worth ''Star-Telegram''.〕 he had passed along his bootmaking mastery to Lee Miller, his heir-designate, thus assuring the survival of exceptional bootmaking in the traditional, handmade manner.〔Michael Wallis, ''Philip Morris Magazine'', November–December 1989, 32.〕 As with four generations of Dunns before him, Charlie had persevered in and prolonged the production of custom boots, despite the general trend toward bootmaking in factories.〔Larry Skloss, "The Best Boots in the World?" ''Gentry Magazine, Austin Citizen'', Vol. 1, No. 5, March 29, 1978.〕 One of a handful of survivors of an endangered species—the half artisan, half artist maker of once-common items—Charlie managed, in passing his skills to a new generation, to make sure that the world continued to enjoy prized bootmaking. == Early life == Charlie was born September 19, 1898, on a riverboat coursing the White River, "between two towns in Arkansas," the third of ten children for Molly and Thomas Dunn. His great-great grandfather, Winfield Scott Duam, made boots in County Cork, Ireland, starting a lineage of bootmakers that reached to young Charlie, five generations. The name change to "Dunn" occurred "a few generations later," presumably in the transition to the United States.〔Larry Skloss, "The Best Boots in the World?" ''Gentry Magazine, Austin Citizen'', Vol. 1, No. 5, March 29, 1978〕 His parents Molly and Thomas hailed from Tennessee.〔Pete Szilagyi, Charlie Dunn Obituary, Austin ''American-Statesman'', September 28, 1993. Title, date〕 At three, the family moved "in a covered wagon" to Texas, settling in Glory, a tiny village outside Paris, a town of 9,000 near the Oklahoma border about 100 miles northeast of Dallas.〔Art Chapman, Obituary of Charlie Dunn, Fort Worth ''Star-Telegram'' September 28, 1993 11A.〕 He attended the local elementary school, though, he recalled, "mama taught us ten children how to read and write and do our 'rithmetic before we even started in school."〔Robyn Turner, ''Austin Originals: Chats with Colorful Characters'' Amarillo, TX: Paramount Publishing, 1982, ?.〕 Charlie took his first paying job at six, emptying spittoons for ten cents a week, but it ended quickly.〔''Southern Living'', n.d., 178.〕 By the next year he was working alongside his father in the shop of Ed Lewis, a one-legged bootmaker.〔"Texas Craftsman: Keeper of a Dying Flame," ''Texas Home'', June 1980.〕 The following year, at age eight, Charlie moved in with Lewis in Paris because, he explained, "I figured I could learn more from someone other than my father." The move possibly was a sign of difficulties in their relationship already.〔Yvonne Saliba, Dallas ''Times-Herald'', April 17, 1977.〕 He learned quickly, and produced his first pair of custom boots when he was 11, a birthday present to himself.〔"The Changeout Times," Exhibits Department Publication of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Vol. IV, Issue XIV, July 23, 2010.〕 The Dunns, like the families of most bootmakers, moved frequently, chasing steady work. Charlie remembered living briefly in several towns, including Tyler, before spending three years in Fort Worth, where his father opened the Dunn Boot Shop on the corner of Main and Exchange Streets.〔Charlie recalls moving with his family to Ft. Worth in 1911, and that he was nine years old: accepting that he was born in 1898, the claims cannot both be accurate. It seems likely that he landed in Ft. Worth after Paris, if only because he frequently refers to making his first pair of boots in Paris, at age eight. FWST82; DTH〕 The stockyards and broader ranch culture provided likely customers for boots. In 1913 or so, the Dunns moved in covered wagons to Arkansas, "to get away from the big city," Charlie recalled.〔Yvonne Saliba, Dallas ''Times-Herald'', April 17, 1977, 6.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Charlie Dunn」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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