All in the Family: These family-Owned Businesses Have Built Something Lasting

A family-owned business is a sanctuary of not only innovation but tradition, too, the place where generations of dreams, sweat, and, yes, some blood and tears, fuse with a determination to create something enduring.

At the heart of the family-owned business, you find the family itself, woven into the fabric of the enterprise. They invested not only capital but also their hearts and souls into the venture.

Their descendants carry the torch forward.

Fort Worth is a breeding ground for dreamers whose ambition is to build something generational for descendants.

Harry Keeton Sr. moved here from Tennessee in 1894. His business was brooms. John Hernandez’s parents were Mexican immigrants. He built a business out of a trade he learned as a young man. Joseph Kubes, a native of Minnesota, could have taken a conventional path. U.S. Marines don’t do conventionality. Andrew Luong’s journey to the land of opportunity began from his native home in Vietnam. Randy Watson simply wasn’t ready to quit making boots.

All of them shared one thing in common: hopes and dreams.

We profile five family-owned businesses whose hopes and dreams have been achieved, though the work endures forever.

John Sons Press

John Hernandez, the son of Mexican immigrants and a graduate of Laneri Catholic High School, worked as a printer as a young man and then as a salesman. Then he took a leap — going into the printing business for himself.

He and his son, Philip, had an opportunity to buy a small printing company, Markem Printing, in the mid-1980s. Philip was put in charge of the business, which evolved into John Sons Press, with all four of John Hernandez’s sons working as officers at the company.

Philip is COO, Edward is head of production, Adrian is head of sales, and Marc oversees the prepress operation. Their base of operations is at a plant at 3300 South Freeway in Fort Worth. Walking around the back is the sweet smell of ink. For someone in the business of publications, it is as sweet a smell as the aromas of a bakery.  

The brothers have expanded the company to include mailing services and diversified into batteries, scooters, and power chairs. The Battery & Scooter store is at 6627 Hawks Creek Ave.

John has said in the past that his sons learned every aspect of the business before they worked their way up to become company officers.

John Hernandez was a longtime member of the Fort Worth Stock Show’s International Committee and its Hispanic Advisory Committee, formed to provide Stock Show officials more insight into broadening the show’s appeal to Hispanics.

“I see John as a true ambassador,” Stock Show President Brad Barnes said of him some years ago. "He works year-round and always has this on his mind: 'How can I get these people all together better, easier?'”

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger (R-Fort Worth) spoke on his behalf in the House in 2000.

“I rise today to pay tribute to John Hernandez, one of Fort Worth, Texas’, finest sons. In honor of his receiving the Ohtli Award from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs for his lifetime service to the Hispanic community.”

Kubes Jewelers

While in service to his country as a U.S. Marine in the Philippines during WWII, Joe Kubes learned how to repair watches, and he began fixing the watches of fellow servicemen. He and his wife, Rita, moved to Fort Worth from St. Paul, Minnesota. Joe was to be honorably discharged here. The couple had only $35 to their name.

Joe eventually got a job at American Airlines. During the war, he had worked on instrument panels of fighter planes.

Instead, Rita talked him into starting his own business in watch repair.

Kubes Jewelers today is in its 78^th year of operation, including the past more than 65 years on West Berry Street near TCU. There are seven family members who work at the store, which just recently turned over management to the third generation of Kubes. Four generations work there. Six are gemologists.

Joe Kubes was self-taught in jewelry repair and how to make jewelry and restring pearls.

“He taught himself how to pretty much do everything,” says Brittany Parker, his great-granddaughter.

He was, however, certified as a gemologist. Parker estimates that he was probably one of nine at the time in Texas.

Like Will Rogers, Joe was said to have never met a man he didn’t like. He always found a commonality with a person, his family says. He insisted on his family calling anyone they interacted with by their name. That habit served as a reminder of the respect to which a person was entitled.

Today, the family says the business remains grounded in their ancestor’s drive and determination, integrity, love, and Christian focus.

The Mattress Factory

A newspaper ad in 1905 declares: “A Sweeping Assertion but true. Harry Keeton, proprietor of Fort Worth Broom Factory, makes brooms that cannot be beaten. Ask your grocer for them.”

Keeton had come to Fort Worth from Tennessee in 1894.  

Keeton’s family-owned outfit expanded to upholstery and then mattress supplies in the 1930s, with the entire brood of eight children working there at one point in time. One of those was son J. Frank Keeton, named for the stalwart Southern Baptist Fort Worth firebrand. Frank Keeton served on the Fort Worth City Council, including a term as mayor pro tempore.

Frank Keeton and Harry Keeton Jr. would expand the business throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Florida. Keeton Jr. began building spring air mattresses in Oklahoma City and West Texas in the 1950s.

As CEO, a position he has held for 40 years, Peter Duncan Jr. oversees the operation of The Mattress Factory today, 127 years after his great-grandfather began selling brooms in 1896. His wife, Tami, and their son, Trey, are on the staff, too. Tami is the administrative assistant, extraordinaire. She handles the books and ties up all the frayed knots. Trey is head of sales and shipping.

The list of active Fort Worth businesses in operation that long is a short one.

Duncan innovated the business by selling his products directly to the consumer at wholesale prices, creating a great demand for his products.

The Mattress Factory produces between 8,000-10,000 pieces each year, Duncan says.

The plant is at 900 E. Vickery Blvd.

The company ships all over the country and into Canada. It is a major supplier for camps, like Camp Longhorn in Burnet. Bed and breakfasts, model homes, and interior designers are all notable clients.

“Everybody has to sleep, you guys,” he reminds.

Pro Tailor

The Luongs escaped the tyranny of communism in their home country of Vietnam as soon as they could. Hung Luong and his wife, Ly Vo, brought their six children here in 1993. Husband and wife were tailors in a town outside of Saigon. They owned their own business, but, of course, you don’t really own anything under the thumb of Ho Chi Minh’s grand design.

“If you raise a pig on the farm, you can’t kill the pig for food,” says Andrew, 47, the Luongs' third child. “You have to sell it to the government, who processes it and sells it back to you.”

Andrew, at age 16, finished his last couple of years of high school and went to UT Arlington to study electrical engineering. In America, rather than own their own business, they went to work as tailors.

Andrew put his engineering degree on hold to live the American dream and to help his family.

Pro Tailor and Ace Tailor are literally enterprises of love.

“My parents were making minimum wage,” Andrew says. “I felt like that had lasted long enough. So, I stepped up to help the family.”

Andrew opened Pro Tailor, which does business in a storefront on Overton Ridge in southwest Fort Worth, and Ace Tailor on Camp Bowie.

Andrew says he was a reluctant tailor, only learning the trade from his mother for spending money as a child.

In both businesses are his parents; his wife, Dang; his brothers, Tony and Duk; and Tony’s wife, Nga.

Thirty years after arriving on American soil, the Luongs are free, happy, and flourishing.

And thankful. Just ask them.

R. Watson Boots

Though Randy Watson was ready to retire as president and CEO of Justin Brands, he soon discovered that vendors, retail partners, and factories weren’t ready for him to leave. All of them reached out asking for an opportunity to work with him again.

Watson had spent decades in the industry making relationships. In addition to executive roles at Justin, he also served as vice president of sales for the Lucchese Boot Co. Justin, of course, included the boot-making operations Nocona Boot and Tony Lama.

He had joined Justin Boot Co. in 1993 as vice president of sales and marketing.

“His leadership skills are proven,” said a one-time Justin Industries CEO JT Dickenson, who died in 2019. “His understanding of the Western and footwear markets is proven.”

With demand for services comes opportunity.

Watson teamed with his son, Ryan, and “a small band” of longtime friends and in the field to open R. Watson Boots, a small family-owned business based in Crowley.

Randy Watson got into the business as part-timer trying to support himself while attending tryout camps for major-league teams. When he discovered he “wasn’t good enough,” he had a new passion in place: boots.

Watson says his sports background gave him the tools to succeed in business. In 2013, he was selected Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in the southwest region.

“You learn how to be resilient when bad things happen,” he has said in the past. “You don’t always have good games or good years. You learn how to respond to all that in athletics.”

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, which acquired Justin Brands in 2000, once said of Watson: “He thinks like an owner and delivers on his promises.”