1. The Dream that Mrs. B Built, May 21, 1980, Channel 7 KETV. Mrs. Blumkin’s quotes have been rearranged and slightly edited for length.
2. Ibid.
3. “The Life and Times of Rose Blumkin, an American Original,” Omaha World-Herald, December 12, 1993.
4. Ibid.
5. Minsk, near Moscow, is relatively close to the Eastern European border of Russia, which would have been a difficult passage during the war. Her route created a longer trip than traveling between San Francisco and New York by train three times, then winding back to Omaha.
6. This and most of the other details of Mrs. B’s journey are from a Blumkin family history.
7. Around 1915, roughly 6,000 Russian Jews lived in Omaha and South Omaha, part of a general migration beginning in the 1880s to escape the pogroms (anti-Jewish riots) that began after the assassination of Czar Alexander II. Most started out as peddlers and small-shop owners, serving the large immigrant working class drawn by the railroads and stockyards. Until 1930, Omaha had the largest percentage of foreign-born residents of any U.S. city. Lawrence H. Larsen and Barbara J. Cottrell, The Gate City. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.
8. Interview with Louis Blumkin. His father was comparing the pawnshop to the many banks that failed during this period.
9. The Dream that Mrs. B Built.
11. Louis Blumkin, who says she sold for $120 coats that cost her $100 and retailed for $200 elsewhere in town.
12. The Dream that Mrs. B Built.
13. “The Life and Times of Rose Blumkin, an American Original.”
14. Interview with Louis Blumkin.
15. Ibid. They were carving out a piece of their allotments for her.
16. “The Life and Times of Rose Blumkin, an American Original.”
17. James A. Fussell, “Nebraska Furniture Legend,” Omaha World-Herald, August 11, 1988.
18. “The Life and Times of Rose Blumkin, an American Original.”
19. Joyce Wadler, “Furnishing a Life,” Washington Post, May 24, 1984.
20. The Dream that Mrs. B Built.
21. “The Life and Times of Rose Blumkin, an American Original.”
22. Joyce Wadler, “Blumkin: Sofa, So Good: The First Lady of Furniture, Flourishing at 90,” Washington Post, May 24, 1984.
23. Buffett, in a letter to Jack Byrne in 1983, noted that Levitz stores averaged about 75% the size of NFM and did 10% the volume of NFM.
24. Frank E. James, “Furniture Czarina,” Wall Street Journal, May 23, 1984.
25. Speech given at Stanford Law School on March 23, 1990. “Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren E. Buffett, Lessons From the Master,” Outstanding Investor Digest, Vol. V, No. 3., April 18, 1990.
26. Chris Olson, “Mrs. B Uses Home to Eat and Sleep; ‘That’s About It,’ ” Omaha World-Herald, October, 28, 1984.
27. Joyce Wadler, “Furnishing a Life.”
28. Bella Eisenberg letter to Warren Buffett, June 8, 1984.
29. “I can hear my mother [saying it] now,” said Louis Blumkin in an interview.
30. In the documentary The Dream that Mrs. B Built, Blumkin refers to this incident and said Buffett didn’t want to give her the price she wanted and she told him he was too cheap.
31. Possibly it might have had something to do with her early years of sleeping on straw on a bare wood floor.
32. James A. Fussell, “Nebraska Furniture Legend.”
33. Berkshire Hathaway 1983 chairman’s letter. Initially, Berkshire bought 90% of the business, leaving 10% with the family, and optioning 10% back to certain key young family managers.
34. Robert Dorr, “Furniture Mart Handshake Deal,” Omaha World-Herald, September 15, 1983.
35. Buffett’s sentimental fondness for Mrs. B is notable in light of her similarity to his mother in the sense of her outbursts of abuse toward her family and employees. Only rarely did he take the risk of associating with anyone who could blow up on him.
36. Warren Buffett letter to Rose Blumkin, September 30, 1983.
37. From a retired Berkshire employee (not Verne McKenzie, the star of this anecdote).
38. Interview with Verne McKenzie.
39. Interview with Stan Lipsey.
40. “A Tribute to Mrs. B,” Omaha World-Herald, May 20, 1984; John Brademas, President, New York University, letter to Rose Blumkin, April 12, 1984.
41. Interview with Louis Blumkin.
42. Joyce Wadler, “Blumkin: Sofa, So Good: The First Lady of Furniture, Flourishing at 90.”
43. Interview with Louis Blumkin.
44. Warren Buffett letter to Larry Tisch, May 29, 1984.
45. Beth Botts, Elizabeth Edwardsen, Bob Jensen, Stephen Kofe, and Richard T. Stout, “The Corn-Fed Capitalist,” Regardie’s, February 1986.
46. Robert Dorr, “Son Says No One Wanted Mrs. B to Leave,” Omaha World-Herald, May 13, 1989.
47. Andrew Kilpatrick, Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett/More in ’04 (California edition). Alabama: AKPE, 2004.
48. Robert Dorr, “Son Says No One Wanted Mrs. B to Leave.”
49. Sonja Schwarer, “From Wheelchair, Mrs. B Plans Leasing Expansion,” Omaha Metro Update, February 11, 1990; James Cox, “Furniture Queen Battles Grandsons for Throne,” USA Today, November 27, 1989.
50. Robert Dorr, “Garage Sale Is Big Success for Mrs. B,” Omaha World-Herald, July 17, 1989.
51. Andrew Kilpatrick, Of Permanent Value.
52. Bob Brown, Joe Pfifferling, “Mrs. B Rides Again: An ABC 20/20 Television News Story,” 1990.
53. “A Businessman Speaks His Piece on Mrs. Blumkin,” Furniture Today, June 4, 1984, Berkshire Hathaway 1984 annual report. Buffett used a line like this with great frequency as a tag to label a person or situation so that other parts of the bathtub could drain.
54. Linda Grant, “The $4-Billion Regular Guy: Junk Bonds, No. Greenmail, Never. Warren Buffett Invests Money the Old-Fashioned Way,” Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1991.
55. Interview with Louis Blumkin.
56. Harold W. Andersen, “Mrs. B Deserves Our Admiration,” Omaha World-Herald, September 20, 1987; Robert Dorr, “This Time, Mrs. B Gets Sweet Deal,” Omaha World-Herald, September 18, 1987.