A new residential complex with nine homes will soon be built on the corner of Oosterdiep and Hoofdkanaal in Emmer-Compascuum. The Schomaker family started their first fashion store there in the late 1930s.
It was the starting point of a family business that grew into a household name in the Northern Netherlands over three generations. For Jos Schomaker, the last person at the helm, the demolition is no cause for sadness. “I look back with gratitude on a wonderful time, but that’s okay.”
The building, as it still stands today, was built in 1937, says Schomaker. “Before that there was a farm, where my father Heinz was born in 1933. And before that, our family already had a drapery shop in Ter Apel, from about 1880. That’s where we come from. The time when the shopkeeper still walked around the farms with pieces of cloth.”
The opening of the store in Emmer-Compascuum marked a charged moment. “My grandmother died in 1936, while my father’s youngest brother was in childbirth. That was of course a disaster, really. But despite that incredible setback, my grandfather persevered. In 1937, Schomaker Herenmode opened.
What followed were the difficult war years and shortly afterwards Grandpa Schomaker died in 1948, only 50 years old. “He never actually got over my grandmother’s sadness,” says Jos. “My father then took it over, after some wanderings, in 1953. There was nothing. No stock, and due to the aftermath of the war everything was still on ration. In short, a business without money and without goods. But he was resourceful. Because there was nothing to be had, he had to make noise, advertising, fanfare. And he knew how to price and buy competitively. That attracted customers.”
Father Heinz was crazy about stock, Jos laughs. “He believed that people should always be able to succeed. When he expanded his business in the 1960s, he proudly hung it on the facade: 1000 costumes. Later, after a renovation, that became 2000 costumes.
Jos grew up above the shop, where he, his sister Rita and both their parents lived. It was a childhood where business was central. Jos knows from the start. “I was born on a busy Saturday afternoon, what timing. My father was helping a customer downstairs. He said: ‘I’ll be right back.’ When he reported back a little later, he said, ‘I just had a son. And then straight back on, of course. I was literally born between two pairs of pants sold.”
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