Walter and Lydia Deubener owned the S. S. Kruesge grocery store in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. Walter Deubener created the first handled paper shopping bag by modifying a conventional paper sack by running strings in a continuous loop under the bottom to help reinforce it and through holes in the side of the bag and to the top where they formed handles. The Deubeners patented their invention and became full-time producers of shopping bags. Walter Deubener began to despair at the utter ubiquity of his invention yet his own anonymity and, in a sad twist of fate, died alone and penniless in a cabin in rural Minnesota.