Leinwand's

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A family business still surviving & thriving

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Leinwand’s

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Story & Photos by Abby Cavenaugh

34 einwand’s is a small-town retail clothier that has survived more than its fair share of adversity. Four years after the business started, a fire in Elizabethtown destroyed the fledgling store. And then, there was World War II. Later, small town department stores began to disappear from the landscape, replaced with big-box buy-itall-here national chains. A recession followed, driving many small businesses into ruin. And now, there’s a global pandemic to contend with.

Trough it all, this family-owned and operated store has stayed its ground in picturesque downtown Elizabethtown, on Broad Street.

Ricky Leinwand is a third-generation operator of the store, and his son, Michael, is following in his footsteps, making it a fourgeneration business.

Ricky’s grandfather, Isaac Leinwand, emigrated from Austria to the United States in 1907. “We’re Jewish, and he just got the heck out of Europe while the getting was good,” Ricky says. “He settled in the Charleston area. Tey had a business in the Charleston area and then in 1933-1934, the banks went bankrupt in South Carolina, and so they say the Great Depression brought the Leinwands to Bladen County.”

Te rest, as they say, is history.

Leinwand’s was founded in 1935, and today, the same hardwood still covers the floors

of the original 19-by-67-foot structure, now the men’s department.

“Te big industry here was farming, so it was kind of a farm store, carrying dry goods, clothing,” Ricky says. “I remember my daddy said we used to carry tobacco canvas. We used to carry these linoleum rugs. Tey were made out of tar, and they were printed on one side. Tey wouldn’t go all the way to the baseboards, they’d just cover part of the floors. We just catered to the farmer. Tat was the industry back then.”

Te business thrived for a few years. But, as Ricky tells it, “Lo and behold, in 1939, half of Elizabethtown burned down, and Leinwand’s was part of it. It didn’t start in our store, it started somewhere else. It actually burned about half a block. So they had to start all over again. No insurance.”

Te six months after the fire is the only time the store has ever been closed for more than a few days, other than holidays and Sundays, over the past 85 years.

“No question about it, we were hurt pretty bad in March and April,” Ricky admits, “but we’ve had record-breaking months in May, June, July and August. It’s just, people are coming back and they enjoy the customer service. We try to do it the right way, and we have a seamstress here most of the time, who does one-hour alterations. Nobody does that anymore.”

Te seven full-time employees have also stuck with the store through it all. One has

People ... enjoy customer service. We try to do it the right way, and we have a seamstress here most of the time, who does onehour alterations. Nobody does that anymore."

— RICKY LEINWAND

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We've got good employees that are sharp and they know, 'hey, we need to carry this brand here. We're getting calls for this.' And we listen."

— RICKY LEINWAND

been employed there for 17 years, another is celebrating his 10th anniversary. And the seamstress, Darlene, “has been here forever,” Ricky says.

“We’ve got good employees that are sharp and they know, ‘hey, we need to carry this brand here. We’re getting calls for this,’” he adds. “And we listen.” Leinwand’s has gone through several incarnations. Ricky says it was a beachy store for a while, carrying brands like Billabong and O’Neill, and then it was preppy, with Duck Head and Izod. Now, there’s a little bit of everything, from Yeti, the North Face, Vineyard Vines, Simply Southern, Under Armour, Sperry and much more. Tey also provide tuxedos and suits for weddings, proms and other formal events.

Ricky and Michael say carrying the latest and greatest brands is a key to the store’s success, but it also goes back to community.

“Daddy came back [after World War II] and got involved in the community,” Ricky says. “He was vice president of the North Carolina Jaycees, and he became mayor during the ‘80s. He became the mayor and I’m on the city council now.”

His father, Wallace Leinwand, was also a Shriner for 50 years, a Mason for 60 years, and even has a park named for him. Both Wallace and Isaac Leinwand were active in the business until their deaths; Wallace passed away eight years ago at the age of 89, and Isaac, in 1970. Ricky’s mother, Shirley, continues to be a big part of the store’s success, Ricky says, at the age of 96. As for Ricky, he was the 10th child born at the hospital in Elizabethtown, which has since closed. In addition to serving on the town council for 14 years, Ricky is also a member of the board of trustees at Bladen Community College.

Although Leinwand’s was always a community store, with a loyal local customer base, Ricky believes that expanding their reach has also been a big part of the continuing success.

After he graduated from

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Carolina in 1974, Ricky says he remembers a conversation with his father. “We were a good store, and we did a lot of good business but I told Daddy, I said, ‘Look, let’s try to upgrade a little bit and have some more name brands.’ He said, ‘Well, this town’s small. We’ve only got 2,000 people, and the county’s 30,000 people.’ I said, ‘Maybe we could draw from other places—Lumberton, Wallace, Clinton, Whiteville, Fayetteville. Now we’ve become a regional store. Bladen County’s our fourth largest volume.”

Bladen County residents still shop there, of course, but now much of the clientele comes from nearby Cumberland, Sampson and Robeson counties.

Leinwand’s reach is spreading even more through online sales. Michael has had a big hand in updating the store’s website and its social media pages. “Te biggest thing is our online presence,” Michael says. “We’ve had a website for years, but we’ve finally brought it into the 21st century. We have items you can order online, and we’re working on coming up with promo codes to help drive sales even more.”

Tere’s no warehouse where those items are stored, either. Tey’re shipped directly from the store in Elizabethtown. “We’re a one-store operation,” Ricky says. “Someone described us as, we’re able to change. Like, if you’re on I-95 in a Volkswagen, you can make a U-turn [easily]. We’re not like an 18-wheeler. We can do it real quick.”

In no small part due to Leinwand’s, Elizabethtown has become a model for small town survival in the South. Driving or strolling down Broad Street is like taking a step back in time in some ways, with all-local retailers featuring colorful window displays,

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We've had a website for years, but we've fnally brought it into the 21st century."

— MICHAEL LEINWAND coffee shops, cafés and Melvin’s, not to mention Burney’s Sweets & More a block away.

“We’re really proud of this, too, because most small towns, they’re not very attractive,” Ricky says.

One major reason is that the Cape Fear River borders the town, barring any bypass that way, unless, as Ricky says, “someone wants to build a $50 million bridge.”

White Lake is another major reason Elizabethtown has stayed on the map. Many motorists from the west have to drive through the town in order to get to the vacation destination.

Te Leinwand family has also played a big part in maintaining Elizabethtown’s small-town charm. “We wanted to revitalize Elizabethtown 20 years ago when my dad was the mayor,” Ricky recalls. “So he put the cart before the horse, and decided to acquire parking lots behind these stores here, and we got Tory Hole right behind [the store], so we can’t park there. So they acquired all that beforehand, because you can have a beautiful town but you better have parking. We took the meters off the sidewalk, no paid parking anymore.”

Town leaders also pursued grants, which usually go to larger cities like Wilmington, Charlotte and Raleigh — and the town won those grants.

“I’m always asked, ‘Why did you want to come back to Elizabethtown?’” Leinwand says. “Well, I’m an hour from the beach, I’m an hour and a half from Raleigh, I’m two hours from Chapel Hill, I’m three and a half hours from the mountains. It takes you an hour sometimes to get from one side of Raleigh to the other. So, why would I want to be anywhere else?”

Leinwand’s is located at 132 W. Broad St., Elizabethtown, and can be reached at 910-862-3772. Te website is www.leinwands.com.

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Shalom, Y’all!

Doing business in the South as a Jew

he Leinwand family is one of the most prominent Jewish business dynasties in Southeastern North Carolina, but they’re definitely not the only ones. According to the Goldring/ Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, many Jewish immigrants did not begin to congregate in North Carolina until the years following the Civil War. During this era, Jews established congregations in Wilmington (1867), Goldsboro (1883) and New Bern (1893), as well as the larger cities like Raleigh, WinstonSalem, Charlotte and Asheville in the western parts of the state. Many Jewish immigrants to eastern North Carolina started out as peddlers, moving from farm to farm, before establishing businesses in numerous towns across the state. In Goldsboro, for example, brothers Henry, Herman, and Solomon Weil opened H. Weil & Brothers store in 1865, which later grew into a wholesale business. William Heilig and Max Meyers started out peddling to the farmers in the countryside outside of Goldsboro, and in 1913, opened a furniture store that later grew into one of the largest furniture store chains in the country, Heilig-Meyers. Jerry Popkin was one of the most well-known Jews in Southeastern North Carolina. Born and raised in New Jersey, he moved to Jacksonville in 1941 at the age of 18. At first, he found a job cleaning outhouses at the former Army base, Camp Davis near Holly Ridge. After Camp Davis was closed by the Army, Popkin took over a grocery store and brought in two of his brothers as partners. From there, the Popkins went into the furniture business. Eventually, they had five furniture stores in Onslow County. Popkin was known for his charitable work in Onslow County, donating to 118 local churches in one year. His brother, Ivins “Itchy” Popkin, was a regular presence on the furniture store’s TV commercials in the 1980s. Kinston also had its fair share of well-known Jewish families. One of these, Sam Fuchs, was a Polish immigrant who started the Hampton Shirt Company with two other partners in New York in 1925. Later, in 1935, the Hampton Shirt Company bought the Kinston Shirt Company, and Fuchs began commuting to Kinston from New York. In 1939, the company sold its northern factories and Fuchs moved to Kinston permanently. His daughter Pearl married Sol Schechter, and the couple purchased the Lenoir Shirt Company. In 1946, the Fuchs family started Samsons, Inc., which was owned equally by Sam Fuchs’ five children. Samsons merged with Hampton Shirt Company in 1963; the company later went public as Hampton Industries. Sol and Pearl Schechter were significant local philanthropists, supporting the Lenoir Memorial Hospital, Kinston Public Library, the Kinston Community Health Center, and the local United Way. In 1971, the Kinston Chamber of Commerce named Sol Schechter the Outstanding Citizen of the Year. In 1995, the Kinston City Council gave Sol and Pearl Schechter a key to the city in recognition of their leadership and service to the community. Further south, in Whiteville, the Leders were among the most prominent Jewish families. Julian Herman Leder came to the United States from the Austria-Hungary Empire in 1920. He settled in Marion, South Carolina, to work for his uncle, Sam Leinwand,

Tand five years later, opened his own store in Whiteville with his brother Morris. The family business began to prosper, and, in 1929, Morris moved to Clinton to open a second store. Soon, other brothers joined in and the family ultimately had stores in five different North Carolina towns — Goldsboro, Wilson, Jacksonville, and Clinton. At their peak, the Leder Brothers owned 25 stores. Ricky Leinwand believes the secret to Jewish families’ success in the retail business is simple. “I’ve been asked, ‘why are you so successful?’ I said, ‘Well, you know, instead of hiding and just being among ourselves, we became a community.’ We became involved—we’ve got mayors, senators, presidents of the Rotary Club, Shriner’s. We even built synagogues. We built eight synagogues in small towns in southeastern North Carolina. Our parents wanted to make sure we carried on our religion and our traditions, and it worked. “

WALLACE LEINWAND To learn more about the Jewish

population in North Carolina, visit

https://www.isjl.org/northcarolina-encyclopedia.html. SE 39