My money's on his brother Robert. "Junie needs a new pair of shoes" is obviously code for "Ruthie needs an old pair of rods".
"Baby needs a new pair of shoes"...is an old crap shooters saying when shooting craps... Lee would have known that old call for lady luck....
I've long suspected that Lee's calling attention to Junie needing new shoes was a veiled request for one of his family to check Junies shoes for some valuable piece of evidence... In fact many years ago I asked Marina if she had kept Junies baby shoes because I believed the baby shoes had "something" important hidden in them....
Marina didn't have a clue what I was suggesting.....Or at least she didn't show any interest, and she said that she had thrown Junies baby shoes away....
Most American mothers from that era....kept their childrens baby shoes to be passed on to grandchildren later in life.....