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34
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1990
home with two children,
Morton and Leonard.
"My mom was not inter-
ested in being a housewife,"
recalls Dr. Morton Hack, to-
day retired from the shoe
company his parents would
launch. "She would do
anything not to keep house."
One day in 1916, Mrs.
Hack was talking to her doc-
tor, J.B. Kennedy. She told
him she was upset. Nathan
traveled quite a bit, and she
wanted to go into business.
He suggested the shoe busi-
ness.
She decided to contact her
brother, Dr. Emil Surock,
who brought them to Detroit
from Bay City so Mrs. Hack
could keep house for him,
then a bachelor.
When her brother married,
Mrs. Hack had nothing to do.
She needed his help. He
loaned her $1,000 and
became a vice president of
the company. Her brother
also rented her space at a
favorable rate in a flat he
owned at Hastings and
Frederick streets.
Nathan liked this idea,
and he joined his wife. At
first, they sold regular, fami-
ly shoes. They knew little
about shoes or feet, but
Nathan, a self-taught man,
read up on the subject,
cramming into his mind
loads of information about
shoes.
Located near a children's
hospital, The Hack Shoe Co.
started getting orders for or-
thopedic shoes. They con-
tinued selling many kinds of
shoes until 1925, when they
sold the company.
They started anew, opting
to concentrate on orthopedic
shoes. It was rough at first.
On the first day, the Hacks
sold three pair of shoes. The
next week, they sold one
pair. The next week, they
sold two.
"They spent more money
than they took home," Dr.
Morton Hack says. "My
mother kept the books, paid
bills, and apologized to the
suppliers when she couldn't
pay.
"They stuck with us," he
recalls. "We got a bank loan
just before the Great
Depression. The bills were
paid in order. It was rough.
Eventually, my parents paid
off everything. They were
sticklers for paying bills."
Eventually, business pick-
ed up. Nathan kept improv-
ing the shoes, and he in-
vented a shoe for the club
foot. The company would
later become known as the
inventor of the ripple sole.
World War II was key to
the Hack family success
story. There was a great
shortage of shoes, so people
were forced to buy better
shoes. The Hacks opened a
branch for children's shoes,
which turned out to be a
worthwhile venture.
Dr. Morton Hack, who
became a podiatrist, and his
brother, Leonard, came into
the business in the mid-
1940s. Their parents retired,
leaving them to tend to the
family legacy.
"I came out of the service
and didn't know what to do,"
Dr. Hack says. "There were
2,000 children waiting for
shoes and I thought of it as
2,000 customers. That ought
to be good business, so I went
into the business."
In its heyday, Hack Shoes
ran six stores. But business
got complicated when the
children of two families all
wanted to run the show. In
the early 1980s, the family
split, selling most of the
buildings.
At the time, Dr. Morton
Hack and his son, James,
moved into one store.
Today the business is run
by James, out of a rented
storefront on Southfield
Road. It is smaller, yet still
profitable, as the business
still relies heavily on
prescription footware.
❑
UJA Seeking
Exodus Cash
New York — Cash flow.
That is the message being
delivered to Jewish commu-
nity federations across the
country from the United
Jewish Appeal (UJA).
Instead of hurrying to
follow up on the tremendous
success of Operation Exodus
with another special cam-
paign for Soviet Jewry, UJA,
in consultation with the fed-
erations, has determined
that sending cash at the
fastest rate possible would
be the best way to assist
Israel with the flood of
Soviet immigrants arriving
there.
UJA's "first priorities"
now, according to a recent
UJA report, are collecting
cash for Operation Exodus,
collecting cash for UJA's
1990 regular campaign and
launching the 1991 regular
campaign, whose goal will
be $800 million.
Most of the actual fund-
raising for Operation Ex-
odus has already been com-
pleted, just nine months
after the special campaign
was first announced.