Courthouse patrons may have noticed the shoe-shine stand is empty this week, as the entrepreneur who has tended it for more than 30 years is in the hospital recovering from pneumonia.
Buddy Crumble has been upgraded from critical to fair condition this afternoon at Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Francis Campus. Eula West, who cheerily greets those walking into the county courthouse from her post at the Information Desk, said she visited Crumble, 76, earlier this week and found him in his usual good spirits.
“I asked him what he was going to do when he gets out of the hospital, and he said, ‘Oh, I have a lot of women who take care of me,’ ” Eula said. “I told him, well, I figured it was all those women would end up killing him.”
Attorneys across Wichita rallied to support Crumble in late 2005, when he tried to move his business from the basement, where the county had moved him in 1998, into the newly renovated lobby. By early 2006, the county had negotiated a new lease for Crumble, in the lobby.
Crumble continued to operate his business in the lobby but has not worked as much this year, because of health problems.