Ernest Hochster, 84, created Panhandle-Slim,one of the best-known labels in Western wear
Hoodini
ERNEST HOCHSTER | 1922-2006
Panhandle Slim line maker dies at 84
By HEATHER LANDY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/obituaries/16343791.htm
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HOCHSTER
FORT WORTH -- Ernest Hochster gave his sons plenty of leeway when they
took over his Westmoor Manufacturing Co. and its Panhandle Slim line
of Western wear more than a decade ago. But he never left the business
entirely.
"He used to tell me that he would dream at night about the business --
he'd dream about a new shirt he thought would work or some other idea
involving the business," Mr. Hochster's son Jeff said. "He dreamt
about it all the time."
Even when his health began to decline, Mr. Hochster kept up his weekly
visits to the company's facility off Interstate 35 and Loop 820,
spending an hour or so every Tuesday, surveying the operations and
catching up with the staff.
The only thing Mr. Hochster was more devoted to was his family, his
sons say. But over the past three decades, the priorities became
inextricably intertwined.
Mr. Hochster, 84, who died Saturday, lived long enough to watch his
sons bring a third generation of Hochsters into the fold. His eldest
grandson, Jamison, joined the 60-year-old family business six months ago.
Mr. Hochster was not born into the cowboy lifestyle. His Jewish family
fled Nazi Germany in 1936 when he was 14.
With no more than a sixth-grade education, Mr. Hochster worked odd
jobs in New York for about a decade before moving to Minneapolis,
where he married a young woman from Vienna and started making men's
sport shirts with his brother, Martin.
Salesmen in the West convinced the Hochsters that if they added snaps
to the shirts and came up with a catchy brand name, they could sell
the line to Western clothing shops. The result was Panhandle-Slim, now
one of the best-known labels in Western wear.
"When Ernest started the business, his shirts were probably the most
expensive Western shirts there were," said Joe Kirshenbaum, whose Wolf
Bros. Western clothing shop in Omaha, Neb., has been buying from
Westmoor since 1952. "They retailed for $9.95 when most of the others
retailed for $5.95 or $6.95. But the workmanship in his shirts was
outstanding, and the styling was different. He was far ahead of
everybody."
Colleagues say that Mr. Hochster had a deep understanding of the
technical side of his business, with an innate feel for fabrics,
cutting, sewing and shirt construction. He also knew how to sell, and
he developed friendships with several of his customers.
"He was an excellent merchant," Kirshenbaum said. "If you couldn't pay
your bills, he'd carry you on until you could pay him. And he would
listen. If a certain shirt came out that was really good and I'd tell
Ernest it really was a hot shirt, he'd make more of them."
Mr. Hochster relocated to Nebraska in 1954 and moved the company again
in 1975 to Fort Worth to be closer to his customers. He was never
fazed by the change -- a strength that his sons attribute to the
uprooting that their father experienced as a teenager.
"He was used to change, he could understand change, and he could
handle change," Mr. Hochster's youngest son, Leonard, said. "He was
ahead of his time in a lot of ways. He was very modern in the way he
managed people."
But there were times when Mr. Hochster, who was partial to suits and
ties and spoke with a slight trace of a German accent, preferred doing
business the old-fashioned way.
Attorney Elliot Garsek, who has represented the Hochsters and Westmoor
since 1978, remembers watching Mr. Hochster balk when he was handed a
60-page loan agreement at Fort Worth National Bank, which at the time
was run by former Fort Worth Mayor Bayard Friedman.
Mr. Hochster was more accustomed to obtaining loans through the
one-page promissory notes that had gone out of fashion years earlier.
"We went into the conference room and Ernest said, 'Bayard, I'm going
to borrow the money, and I will repay you the money, and I don't think
we need all these documents to be gone over by all these lawyers,'"
Garsek recalled. "In front of the lawyers and some of the bank
officers, Bayard tore up the papers and threw them in the trash and
said, 'Give this man a promissory note.' If Ernest said he was going
to do something, he did it."
Stephenville native Ron Pack, who joined Westmoor in 1978 and now
produces televised professional bull-riding events, said Mr. Hochster
was a mild-mannered man who earned authority by running his company
with a quiet confidence and by taking an interest in his employees'
development.
"My father died in 1980 when I was 24 years old, and Ernest became not
only a mentor to me but also a kind of second father," said Pack, who
started at Westmoor as a distribution manager, rose to vice president
and remains involved in the company as a consultant. "We couldn't have
come from two more different lifestyles, but the education he gave me
was truly priceless, and I wouldn't trade it for all the money in the
world."
Mr. Hochster stepped away from the business in the early 1990s to care
for his ailing wife, Erica, who died in 1996. They were married for 49
years.
But Mr. Hochster's emphasis on serving mom-and-pop clients remains a
cornerstone of the firm, in an industry that is now dominated by
corporate accounts and bureaucratic procedures.
Pack said that he and Mr. Hochster's son Jeff had set their sights on
bigger accounts in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the popular
movie Urban Cowboy sparked a brief frenzy for Western wear, though
Ernest Hochster predicted that it would fizzle out.
"Ernest never let anybody sacrifice the small customer for the big
ones," Pack said. "He was always in the background whispering, 'Don't
forget the little guys.' We both settled down and learned some of the
life lessons that his dad taught us."
Mr. Hochster received several industry honors, including the American
Cowboy Culture Award in Western Wear and a spot in the Western Image
Hall of Fame. He was a member of Ridglea Country Club, the Fort
Worth-Tarrant County Jewish Federation, Congregation Ahavath Sholom
and other organizations.
He was buried Sunday at Ahavath Sholom Cemetery next to his wife.
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