“I sat on my own stairs every morning for twelve weeks because I couldn’t reach my own feet.” — Why a 73-year-old Pennsylvania foundryman is selling his last hand-poured shoe horns at a special price before his family’s foundry closes forever.

The hardest part of the day often comes before breakfast. It is the moment you look down at your shoes and they seem a mile away.

After a new hip, the surgeon’s rule is usually the same: do not bend forward past 90 degrees. Not for six weeks. Often not for twelve. A bad back or stiff knees can make it feel just as far.

So people sit on the edge of the bed or on the bottom stair, lean forward and stretch for their heels. Every morning. Most of them don’t think twice about it. They should.

The most dangerous minute of the day starts with a pair of shoes

According to the CDC, more than 14 million Americans over 65 fall every year. That is one in four. Emergency rooms see about 4.5 million visits a year for these falls. And close to 319,000 older Americans end up in the hospital with a broken hip each year, most of them after a fall.

Most of these falls don’t happen on ice or on a ladder. They happen at home, in ordinary moments. Getting out of bed. Getting dressed. Putting on shoes.

Bending down to your feet is harder on the body than it looks. Your head drops below your heart. Your weight shifts forward over your toes. Your balance rests on a few square inches. Then you stand back up, and many older people feel a head rush for a second or two. That is the moment they reach for the wall. Sometimes they miss it.

After a hip replacement, there is one more danger. Bending too far can push the new joint out of place. That is why surgeons forbid it, and why so many patients go home scared of their own shoes.

A shoe horn should solve exactly this. But the one most people own is short, so they still bend all the way down. The danger stays. The shoe horn just comes along for the ride.

Five reasons the shoe horn in your drawer lets you down

Lyle Brubaker has made shoe horns in Pennsylvania for seventeen years. He knows exactly what goes wrong with the store-bought ones.

• They are too short. Most drugstore shoe horns are six to eight inches long. You still have to bend all the way down to your heel. “It just gives you something to hold while you do it,” Lyle says.
• They bend and break. Thin plastic gives way as soon as you lean on it. “It bends like a ruler. Then it snaps,” Lyle says. Usually right when you need it most.
• They weigh nothing. A light handle doesn’t keep the spoon in place. It slips out of the heel, and you end up chasing it around the shoe.
• They ruin good shoes. A hard, flat edge pushes the back of the shoe down. Do that every morning, and a good pair of shoes is worn out within a year.
• Grabbers don’t really help. Plastic reacher sticks can pick a shoe up, but they can’t help your foot into it. “I’ve watched grown men fish for their shoes with plastic claws,” Lyle says. “That isn’t getting dressed.”

A horse that puts your boots on

Lyle is 73 and lives in Strasburg, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Amish buggies still roll past his barn every morning. Inside that barn, his family has poured hot metal into sand molds since 1952.

For more than seventy years the Brubaker Foundry has made door knockers, hitching posts and fireplace pieces. Two shapes carried the business: a horse head for the hitching posts on the farms, and a lion head for front doors.

“Every farm on this road had one of our horse heads out front. You tied your horse to a Brubaker.”

In 2009 Lyle got a new hip. For twelve weeks he was not allowed to bend. Every morning he sat on the stairs and couldn’t reach his boots. His wife June had to put them on for him.

After three weeks of that, he went out to the barn. He took a horse head from the reject box, turned a 22-inch hardwood handle on his father’s old lathe and fixed a polished metal spoon to the bottom.

“June looked at it and said, ‘Lyle, you made a horse that puts your boots on.’ The next Sunday, three men at church asked me for one.”

By Christmas he had made forty. Since then, about 3,100 have gone to neighbors, his church and a Lancaster therapy clinic that hands them to hip patients.

Why you stand up straight the whole time

• “The 90-Degree Rule”: At 22 to 23 inches long, the shoe horn reaches from your hand to your heel while you stand up straight. Lyle measured it against the surgeon’s rule. No bending, no sitting down.
• “The Counterweight Head”: The cast head sits heavy in your hand. That weight keeps the spoon pointed straight down into the heel. You guide it instead of pushing it. One owner wrote: “Good weight on the handle.”
• “The Heel-Saver Curve”: The polished spoon is wide and curved, with a rounded edge. Your heel slides in, and the back of the shoe stays in shape, morning after morning.
• “The 1952 Heritage Mold”: Every gold-finished head comes from the shapes Lyle’s father carved in 1952 — the horse or the lion. A loop at the top lets it hang by the front door, right where you need it.

The two shapes in the flour sack

Lyle keeps his father’s two hand carvings, the horse and the lion, wrapped in an old flour sack in his workbench drawer.

“My father carved these at our kitchen table. Seventy-four years later I’m still pouring from them.”

There is one rule in the barn that Lyle has never broken. Nobody talks while the metal is poured. “My father said the metal can hear you,” he says. He doesn’t smile when he says it.

The morning he had to set it down

Lyle will miss the early mornings most: the roar of the furnace, the smell of damp sand.

But a full pot of melted metal weighs about forty pounds. You lift it out of the fire, turn it and pour it in one steady move. This spring, his lower back gave out. The pain runs all the way down his left leg.

In August, halfway through a pour, Lyle had to set the pot down. In 54 years that had never happened.

“I set it down, and I knew right there. That was the last one.”

His doctor agreed: no more lifting. There is no one to take over. 212 shoe horns are left, horse and lion together. After that, the two carvings go back in the flour sack for good, and the foundry closes at the end of the year.

“Nobody should have to sit on the stairs”

A lion-head door knocker from the Brubaker Foundry sold for $180 in Lancaster. Lyle could ask the same for his last shoe horns. Everyone would understand. He won’t.

“I know what it’s like to sit on your own stairs at six in the morning and not reach your feet. I don’t want to get rich off that.”

He wants the last 212 to hang by front doors where somebody needs one every morning. Not in a display case.

Lyle doesn’t own a computer. His granddaughter Kayla, a nurse in Philadelphia who sees hip patients every week, set up the page where you can order now.

What people with stiff backs say about Lyle’s shoe horns

• ★★★★★

  “Bought it for my husband two weeks before his hip surgery. The doctor told him to get a long shoe horn. He wears a size 13 and it works perfectly. It looks handsome by the door, too.”

  Carol M., Lititz, PA
• ★★★★★

  “Heavier than I expected, in a good way. The head sits nicely in your hand and the spoon goes right where it should. No more sitting on the bed.”

  Dennis K., Akron, OH
• ★★★★★

  “I got the lion for my dad’s 80th birthday. He called the next morning just to tell me he put his shoes on standing up.”

  Susan P., Frederick, MD

Three questions people ask before ordering

Where can I buy one of Lyle’s shoe horns?

Only through this page. Lyle’s shoe horns are not sold on Amazon, Temu or in any store.

How long will they be available?

Only while supplies last. The furnace is cold for good, and there are 212 shoe horns left, horse and lion together. Once they are gone, there will be no new ones.

What if it’s not right for me?

You have 30 days to try it at home. If you are not happy, just send a short email and you will get your money back. No questions, no hassle.

More from people who hang one by the door

• ★★★★★

  “I’m 6 foot 4 with a bad back. Every other shoe horn was too short. This one finally reaches without me folding in half.”

  Howard B., York, PA
• ★★★★★

  “The horse head is beautiful. My grandfather had horses, so this one means something to me. Guests always ask about it.”

  Marjorie T., Lexington, KY
• ★★★★★

  “My knees don’t like bending anymore. Now I hang it right by the door and I’m out of the house in a minute. Should have had one years ago.”

  Phyllis G., Wilmington, DE