San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Mystery man in 1968 photo has family baffled
Attached please find a clipped article that appeared in the paper from Aug. 25, 1968, announcing the opening of another store in the once-thriving San Antoniobased chain the Woman’s Shop. The article was saved by my uncle Elliott Cohen — mentioned in the article and whose photo accompanies it. Elliott passed away in December 2019, and my father, James Fish, is mentioned as a vice president of the company in the article as well. Unfortunately, the photograph identified as him is wrong. None of us in my family knows who that is.
James’ 88th birthday is June 2, and I was hoping that the Express-News could run a correction that would be an immensely thoughtful birthday gift for my dad. The story of the error and subsequent correction might be a small moment of joy for others. And we could all use small moments of joy now, right?
— Richard Fish, M.D., Houston
Under the headline, “New specialty shop to open,” on page 6-E of the Sunday paper, Aug. 25, 1968, there are four small head shots of the management of the Woman’s Shop chain of specialty stores for women wearing “hard-to-find large or half sizes.”
From left, the photos are captioned: Elliott Cohen, vice president and son-in-law of Harry Fish, founder and longtime San Antonio merchant; Eli Fish, advertising and marketing manager; and someone captioned as “J. Fish,” for James Fish, vice president of the company. It’s this last image that has confounded the family for decades — a dark-haired, middle-age man who doesn’t resemble the other members of the Fish family.
The story heralds the opening of a new store in the Military Drive Plaza shopping center, similar to the others in the chain, which provided one-stop shopping — sportswear, street and cocktail dresses, lingerie, coats, suits and even uniforms — for women who wore misses sizes 18-20, what we’d now call plus sizes in 38 to 52 and half sizes (designed for the “mature figure”) 12½ to 26½.
The Woman’s Shop at the time was described as the only one in the city catering exclusively to women in this size range, with clothes in a variety of price points gathered into “shops within a shop” to outfit the customer from head to toe, daytime through evening wear.
The original flagship store opened in 1960 at 1616 N. Main Ave., former site of the Julian Gold high-end specialty shop. Founder Harry Fish had a pedigree in local retail, having served 26 years as president of downtown’s Vogue department store, followed by a stint as head of the women’s department at Hutchins Bros. department stores in San Antonio and Austin.
For several years, the Woman’s Shop and the Harry Fish Shop — quality women’s fashions in straight sizes — operated out of the same premises. As the clientele for the former grew, the company made the decision in 1966 to close the Harry Fish Shop and enlarge the Woman’s Shop.
The Woman’s Shop opened several more locations in San Antonio, with its its first branch in 1965 at North Star Mall, another in 1968 at Military Drive Plaza and another in 1976 at Wonderland Mall. A Corpus Christi branch opened, and the first of three Houston stores opened in 1967 at Northline Shopping Mall, managed by James Fish. Two more Houston locations opened in 1970 and in 1972.
“The reason the stores were successful was that there were few department stores or any other resources that paid attention to full-figured women — and if so, in very small spaces,” said James’ wife, Beverly Fish.
After the death in 1969 of Harry Fish, Elliott Cohen in San Antonio and James Fish in Houston shared executive director roles and were co-owners of the company.
According to an employee history provided by Bob Cohen, Elliott’s son, the company grew through the 1980s with remodeled stores, enlarged warehouses, new offices and an eventual total of 15 stores, including branches in Pasadena, Sharpstown and Tyler. In 1984, the company — whose management was getting stretched pretty thinly among all those stores — was acquired by the Wickes Corp. of San Diego, Calif.
The company carried the name of the Woman’s Shop into 1988, Cohen said, before taking on the name of Woman’s World.
So who is the man in the photo the newspaper identified as “J. Fish” when the company was making news with one of its earlier branches? The story appeared in what would have been thought of as the “women’s section” at that time — fashion, bridal announcements, celebrity news and recipes. There’s no other story in the E section that has a similar small photo of James Fish. Nor does the real Fish appear anywhere else in that issue.
There’s only one story in the Aug. 25, 1968, paper that omits any photo of its male subject, one on page 10-C from the Los Angeles Times News Service about a retiring former chief test pilot for Lockheed California Co. Herman Richard Salmon — nicknamed “Fish,” as he’s referred to throughout the story.
Did a photo of Salmon/“Fish” come through with the wire story, and was it somehow shuffled with one of James Fish provided by the Woman’s Shop for its story? The Salmon/“Fish” story is a tight wrap around a large advertisement — not a lot of room for even a small inset photo.
I sent the bogus “J. Fish” photo to Tom Shelton, photo curator at UTSA Special Collections, which has the historical newspaper collections, but he didn’t recognize the not-Fish as a prominent San Antonian. If the photo was sent to the paper for an ad for a local business, was it accidentally assigned to the Woman’s Shop story?
We don’t know, but we’re setting it straight here that the photo was incorrectly identified as James Fish.
Happy birthday, Mr. Fish! Anyone who recognizes the mystery man may write to this column. We need to put things right for him, too.