A 22-year-old Marine veteran of World War II and his 18-year-old bride turned a suitcase into a jewelry retail legacy that continues today, 80 years later, in Fort Worth, Texas. The story began in 1945, and Joe Kubes had spent the previous three years as a master technical sergeant repairing watches and instrument panels while serving in the Pacific Rim. He married in September, and by November, wife Rita Kubes convinced him to turn his skills into his own watch-repair and jewelry business.
“She was a go-getter,” recalls granddaughter Katie Kubes, a third-generation co-owner of Kubes Jewelers. “My grandfather was going to go to work for American Airlines, but my grandmother’s parents had a Studebaker repair shop, so she knew about owning a family business.”
The newlyweds started out in a corner of a dry cleaner, graduated to the corner of a grocery store a year later, and then moved across town to a beauty salon opposite Texas Christian University. All the while, they carried their inventory and repair items home in a suitcase every night.
By 1952 they closed their suitcase and opened their first dedicated jewelry store, a site on West Berry Street. The couple had six small children in 1956 when Joe took the educational leap of attending a six-week Gemological Institute of America residency program to become a Certified Gemologist – one of the first Texas jewelers to earn that title.
In 1965, Kubes Jewelers moved diagonally across the street to the building they occupy today – taking along their prized original neon sign. When they purchased the building in 1997, they added an iconic four-sided clock to their corner…