And you needed help to button up your shoes / spats. Not sure if this was my grandmother’s or my grandfather’s (there are those WW I pictures of him in uniform with spats).

And then there was Grandma Florence with her high top shoes, all buttoned up.

Anyway, I found this button hook among other things that belonged to my grandmother when I was cleaning out my parents’ home. At first, I wondered what the heck it was, but I was able to figure it out with the help of eBay and Google. It is definitely one of those objects, if you didn’t know what is was or what era it had originated, you would be totally confused.