Ernest W. Stix, Jr., member of a prominent Jewish family which owned the Rice-Stix, Inc., a manufacturer and wholesaler of dry goods, died Thursday, Oct. 4, at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in Town and Country. Mr. Stix had been hospitalized for five days, family members said. He was 95 and had resided in University City.

Mr. Stix’s family founded the old Rice-Stix Co., which had been co-founded by his grandfather, William Stix, and which by the time of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, was described as the largest business in St. Louis. The firm’s headquarters was at 1000 Washington Avenue.

Mr. Stix’s father, Ernest W. Stix, Sr., became president of the firm in 1916, and held that position for 39 years until his death in 1955. That same year, the firm was acquired by the Reliance Manufacturing Co. in New York, which later was acquired by Safle Bros., Inc., also of New York. Mr. Stix’s cousin, Charles Stix, was a founder of the old Stix, Baer & Fuller department store chain in St. Louis, which was later acquired by Dillard’s.

Ernest Stix, Jr. was born in St. Louis and attended the John Burroughs School. Stix’s father had been credited for suggesting the school’s name, based on his admiration for Burroughs, the naturalist and author.

Mr. Stix attended Harvard University where he received his undergraduate and master’s in business administration degrees. He began his career in the family business by working in a Rice-Stix overall factory.

He was in the U.S. Army during World War II in the Pacific Theater of Operations. He served in the Army Horse Cavalry and later was an officer in an otherwise all-African-American quartermaster company in the Aleutian Islands.

After his military service, Mr. Stix returned to St. Louis and began to work at the Rice-Stix downtown office. He also rented a loft apartment on Pine Street. He met his wife, Judith Stix, at the St. Louis Symphony when she was 17. After she graduated from college, he invited her to a New Year’s party. They soon became engaged, and were married four months later.

After his father’s death in 1955 and the breaking up of the family business, Mr. Stix began extensive charitable work and started creating and collecting art. Many of his sculptures were constructed and designed from found objects. Some of his works were shown at the St. Louis Community College at Meramec, Fontbonne University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Mr. Stix is credited for reviving the Greater St. Louis Community Foundation, and became its first director. The foundation today is one of the area’s largest grant-makers and administers hundreds of charitable funds.

Among the many charitable and community agencies supported by the Stix family through the years are the old Jewish Shelter Home, the Jewish Hospital (now Barnes/Jewish), the Jewish Federation of St. Louis and the Municipal Opera.

Mr. Stix also started the Westgate Press, named for the University City street where he resided. The firm published a book by his wife on Bessie Lowenhaupt, a painter known for her St. Louis scenes, who died in 1968.

The family received friends last Friday at The Gatesworth, 1 McKnight Place in University City. Survivors, in addition to his wife, include a daughter, Susan Stix of Austin, Texas; two sons, Peter Stix of Albany, N.Y. and Robert Stix of Red Bank, N.J. and six grandchildren.