Henry Hotze & Sons 1862 - 1962

by Bent Hotze

Page 6

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The factories were always the old loft types; 3-4 floors in the levee district in downtown St. Louis below third street. South of Washington to Market street.

Henry Hotze and Sons was sold to Jay Kay and Harry, making them owners of the business about 1889 or 1890. Some sort of promissory note in favor of "Grandma" (Mrs. Henry Kaeb Hotze). The business did yield a living income to Jay Kay and Harry, a small salary to Charlie, and a job at the bench to Will, and later to Albert, (A change of life baby born after Harry was 30 and  married).

Jay Kay was a man of many ideas and a fresh mind. His "Sit Fast" saddle was a stock saddle, "Stock" of course, refers to its use in herding cattle. It always had a roping horn, Jay Kay's "Sit Fast" had a deep swell in front behind the horn, so designed to avoid a rupture to the rider in hard riding, or on an unruly mount.

He designed and marketed a fashionable ladies belt with a big buckle or diamond shaped piece in front. Like all fashions it was in "vogue" for 2 or 3 years (The "wasp" waist was fashionable along with the stayed corset). No panty waist man could perform the husband's duty of lacing up his mate.

Disaster hit Jay Kay in 1901. His wife contracted the dread "White Plague", tuberculosis. He sent his wife, first to Battle Lake, Minnesota, than, after no improvement, to Las Vegas, New Mexico along with her baby son, Harry. Her six year old, Bent, was sent to board on a farm near Rolla, Missouri, owned by Belle Patterson's parents, (Wife Helen's housemaid). This occurred after Bent became too much of a nuisance to his maternal Grandmother Bent, like, breaking his arm, and being overactive in the stable where the horse and carriage attracted him, and where the stable man lived.

Jay Kay went in debt to the small business for $5,000.00, still unpaid when World War 1 broke out in 1913. The writer recalls his disbelief when Jay Kay said it meant war when the Arch Duke, also heir to the Austrian Throne, was assassinated in Croatia. At that time Croatia and Herzagonia were provinces of Austria and Hungary.

When war broke out, Studebaker of South Bend, Indiana got a large contract for war supplies from England. Studebaker sublet the saddle, (For English Calvary officers), to a group of saddle manufactures, and were interested, meeting in South Bend.