Through trials and tribulations, Handley’s Western Wear owner Debbie Tittle knows only one speed: full steam ahead.

Words by Justin Hunter | Images by Ryan McGill

On the morning of February 9, 2017, Handley’s Western Wear owner Debbie Tittle suffered a life-threatening brain aneurysm only moments after locking herself inside the boot store.

Nothing was out of the ordinary that Thursday. Tittle had arrived early to prep for the day in her office when she collapsed. She awoke to the sound of a customer pounding on the front door. The keys were still hanging in the door, but Tittle was so disorientated that she couldn’t open it.

Suspecting trouble, the customer ran down the sidewalk to JB’s Pawn Shop and got the owner, John, and his employee, Tommy. While the trio attempted to get inside, Tittle dragged herself to the back door and pushed it open. She doesn’t remember anything after arriving at the store that morning.

“From what I’ve been told, a guy was pounding on the door out here,” says Tittle. “I never met him; still haven’t. John called 911, and when I came to, I was in the hospital.”

Tittle remained in the intensive care unit for 13 days after that harrowing event. Forty staples were etched on the side of her head, from her widow’s peak to her left ear. Two months later, she returned to the hospital to have an aneurysm clamped on the right side of her brain to prevent another rupture, which required another 30 staples.

“I had an employee quit after my second surgery,” Tittle says. “So, I sat back in my recliner at the store helping customers,” said Tittle. “I believe God kept me here for a reason, and that is to care of these people with special needs that can’t simply go into a department store and buy a pair of shoes. It is my greatest joy to help these people with something we take for granted every single day.”

God has kept the store in business, too. Back in 1981, Mitchell and Faye Handley opened Handley’s Western Wear and Shoe Repair on Highway 195 in Jasper. Mr. Handley was a third-generation shoe repairman in Walker County who followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.

Tittle came to work for the Handley family at 19 years old and was Mr. Handley’s “right-hand girl” from 1987 until 1989. Even after she left the store, her heart was tied to the place.

“I remember Mr. Handley saying to me once, ‘You walked into this store, and you were so confident that this is where you wanted to be,’” says Tittle.

As fate would have it, in the spring of 1998, Debbie came into the store to have some shoes repaired, not knowing Mr. and Mrs. Handley were planning retirement. “Mrs. Handley grabbed my hand and said, ‘We want you to buy our business,’” Tittle recalls. “And that’s how it fell to me on May 1st of 1998, and I’m still here 23 years later.”

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Tittle moved to Alabama with her family when she was 12 years old. She’s quick to tell you she wasn’t raised as a cowgirl, and all her rodeo knowledge has come from customers over the years. She graduated from Curry High School and attended Walker College before entering the working world.

For Debbie, Handley’s is more than a family-owned and operated boot store; it’s her family’s legacy— and a blue collar one at that. That legacy is often displayed by setting up a mobile boot shop at the coal mines or reattaching the leather strap to a woman’s favorite pursue, or by repairing a cowboy’s leather saddle.

And if the walls of Handley’s could talk, they’d tell her life’s story.

“When you walk around Handley’s, you’ll see all of the things that I’ve collected over the years being here in Walker County,” Tittle says. “I married, settled, and raised my kids here. A lot of my heart is still in Wisconsin, where my mom grew up, and Cincinnati, where I was raised, but Alabama is my home. And you can see the stories that I have to share on these walls.”

Those aged walls are covered in framed photos, posters, and memorabilia. When the store is slow, ask Tittle about a certain poster on the wall, or where the leather came from for the pairs of youth rodeo chaps on display, or about the time Willie Nelson kissed her mother on the cheek after a concert at Looney’s Tavern in Double Springs, Alabama.

“It’s those precious memories of rodeos, biker nights, and folks I’ve met over the years that I hold close to my heart,” Debbie says. “And how this store has turned into my passion.” 78