News

By Ron Hayes

DELRAY BEACH — Back in the late 1980s, when Canning Shoes had already been a landmark on East Atlantic Avenue for nearly four decades, Vince Canning introduced a new policy.
Bring in a pair of old shoes and he would give you $10 off your new pair.
And then he donated those old shoes to the South County Migrant Association.
“Your Sole Mate” is the shoe store’s slogan, but to those who knew him, Mr. Canning was the whole community’s soul mate, an always jovial gentleman with an infectious smile, a weakness for Mickey Mouse and Buster Brown wristwatches, and a seemingly tireless need to serve others.
Mr. Canning died on Feb. 18 after several years of failing health. He was 88.
“He was just one of those caring people,” said his nephew Mark Denkler, who has owned the store since Mr. Canning’s retirement in 1994. “When we first came here, homeless people would come in and he would give them money to go to Publix.”
On his first Valentine’s Day as the store’s new owner, Denkler recalled, Mr. Canning handed him $100 and told him to go to the bank, get 50 $2 bills and give one to any customer who came in wearing red — even if the customer didn’t buy any shoes.
“So I had homeless people in here scaring off the customers, plus I’m giving all this money away,” Denkler said, laughing warmly at the memory. “But that’s just the way he was.”
Mr. Canning’s fondness for Valentine’s Day was not a coincidence.
Vincent Valentine Canning Jr. was born on Christmas Day 1929 in Indianapolis, the youngest of 11 children. After earning a business degree from the University of Missouri in 1951, he served in the U.S. Marines for two years, then worked for the Brown Shoe Co. in St. Louis, where he met his wife, Patricia Lyng Canning, who survives him.
The couple’s daughter, Karen, died in infancy.
In 1957, Mr. Canning arrived in Delray Beach to take over Warren’s Better Shoes, the family shoe store his father, Vincent Sr., had owned since 1952, and for the next 37 years he somehow found time to run the business while volunteering for any public or private organization whose mission he admired. By 1993, the old shoe trade-in policy had become Open Your Heart/Open Your Closet, a joint project with the city’s Downtown Development Authority, whose executive director was Marjorie Ferrer.
“For me, he was the volunteer,” Ferrer said. “If I needed anybody to do anything, I could call Vince. He was a wonderful, sweet, beautiful person.”
In time, Mr. Canning expanded the business to stores in Boynton Beach, Boca Raton and Pompano Beach. Those outlets were sold as retirement neared, but his devotion to the community never flagged.
In 1967, he became a founding member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society where, as a board member, he helped buy the migrant association’s first trailers.
He was also a board member of the Delray Library and Delray Playhouse, Old School Square, the Achievement Centers, CROS Ministries and the Boca Raton and Boynton Beach Chambers.As a past president of the Delray Chamber, he was awarded its Lifetime Achievement Award, and was also honored by the Exchange Club, Rotary International, the Kiwanis Club and St. Vincent Ferrer Church.
“He was the family shoe store in town,” Denkler said. “Everybody knew this man who was always nice and had a loud voice and always smiled who fit a whole generation of kids in their shoes.”
When Mr. Canning died, his nephew added, he was wearing a Buster Brown wristwatch.
In addition to his wife and nephew, he is survived by a sister-in-law, Jane Coose; nieces and nephews Shawn, Keith, Tom, John and Ann Denkler, as well as Cynthia Epperson Coleman, Donald, Mark and Eric Epperson; and Jane Thompson, Anne Marie Epperson Leung and Emily Coose Weber; and 30 great-nieces and great-nephews.
In honor of his Irish heritage, a memorial service will be held at St. Vincent Ferrer Church, 840 George Bush Blvd., in Delray Beach on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, at 10 a.m.
Donations may be made to the St. Vincent de Paul Society at the church address.