 Its founder Alex Wise was with the company for practically its whole existence and was still president in 1994 though he was retired by the time it went bankrupt in 1995.He died on January 12, 2004 at the age of 97 and one of his three sons who presided the company with him, Ralph, died on October 21, 2015.32 of Wise and Peoples's vacated spaces became Hart Stores in August 1995, a department store chain with a similar concept.