Is the song Christmas shoes a true story?

Answer 1

According to the book "More Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas" by Ace Collins (Zondervan 2006, ISBN-10: 0-310-26314-X) it is a true story. Helga Schmidt tells of her personal experience in the late 1970's in Alco, Kansas at a local store of two children, a young brother and sister, buying shoes for their dying mother. The line was busy and the two children seemed very precious to them. They were fighting, like children do, over who would get to place the prized shoes on the checkout counter. Once there, they discovered they were $3.00 short. Helga Schmidt, sensing the urgent need in the little cherub faces, gave them the $3.00 they needed to complete the purchase. They thanked her and after receiving the bagged shoes from the clerk they explained that their mother was very sick and going to heaven real soon. According to Collins telling of the true story, the little boy said, "These shoes will match the streets of gold in heaven. We learned about those streets in Sunday School class." Schmidt, moved by the experience wrote about it in a continuing education course. That paper was reprinted in a church bulletin and later shared in other church newsletters and publications finally making it into the bestselling "Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul." With the dawn of the internet the story received new life and a world wide audience as the popular story was forwarded to millions via email, embellishing in detail and scope, but the truth of a child's love for his/her dying mother and wanting her to have pretty shoes for heaven remains it's most significant moment and carries with it the hope of Christmas, that God offers eternal life through the Christ Child. All who call upon the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord, will be saved.

Answer 2

It is more than plausible and surely this puts a new and morbid spin on the usually uplifting ring-ting ting a ling holiday muse. Somewhat oddly we never learn exactly what the Mother"s health problem was, or a lot of other factors and facts. We don"t even learn her name.