HENRY PESKIN: KNOWN FOR VALUES

By Michael Henry Kleinman

Back in 1910, soon after his thirteenth birthday, Henry Peskin came to the United States from Poland with the clothes on his back and ten dollars for the immigration and naturalization services. After learning English in the New York schools, he began working for his brother-in-law in Columbia, South Carolina and eventually took over the family store.

Sharing his early twenties with the United States, and being young and bold in a boom economy, Henry took his newly acquired retail know-how and keen business sense to Orlando, Florida where he opened his own small back street store. Preceding Sam Walton, he would travel to New York and buy wholesale. The innovator developed a following, and savings piled on slowly but surely. Then came Black Tuesday.

Penniless but unshaken, Henry had heard that the small country town of Winder would be a good place to start over. Cash cotton and the sewing trade supported the floundering economy, and there were granite miners in need of work clothes. So Henry trekked up to Winder. There he approached Charles Maddox, the founding cashier of People’s Bank, and requested five hundred dollars to open a department store in a warehouse emptied out by the crash.

Maddox was wise to take a chance with Henry. Peskin and Co. bloomed in the cracked market. Value was low, but Henry kept the operation running by working with the struggling community and setting the fairest prices possible. He ingrained himself in the Winder economy and learned the needs of every demographic, selling piece-good to the Southern women who sewed their own clothing and offering low priced furniture to luckier families.

And after a few lucrative years, Henry would have the opportunity to return the favor to People’s. By that time, everyone knew that “Mr. H” was an excellent businessman. In that small a city, the merchant’s customers were his neighbors. And the whole town talked of his ingenious knack for selling his personality whilst advertising his wares.

And so, on a dark Monday morning in the early 30’s, the talk of the town approached the gangs crowded around People’s. Everyone wanted the money out and under the mattress. But Henry wouldn’t have that. Not for the bank that had trusted him when he was down. Carrying a bag full of his weekly sales, all $4,000, he announced that he would like to make a deposit.

For a long time, the Peskins were the only Jewish family in Barrow County. The Klan had a majestic presence, with chapters all over every little town across the countryside. Henry’s nephew and adopted son Phillip remembers seeing parades of hooded men and crosses burning at the courthouse, remembers hearing certain people speak about his father, saying they wouldn’t buy from that “damn Jew.”

During every Christmas season, Henry would donate hundreds of parcels of groceries to the neediest families, and he gave to every possible charity and church throughout the year. Local sharecroppers who befriended him enjoyed nine-month debt-free credit extensions. When Winder sent its soldiers off to fight in WWII and Korea, Henry was there at the train with a carton of cigarettes for each brave young fighter.