I did this follow up story on ex-Omaha heavyweight boxer Ron Stander about seven or eight years after the first story I did on him, which you will also find on this blog.  In that earlier piece Stander was still fighting some demons, still in the throes of recovery.  In the interim, Stander had come to terms with some things in his life and by the time I did this second story he seemed more at peace with himself and his place in the world.  Stander was and is a tough dude, but he’s also a big teddy bear of a man with a heart of gold.  That’s one thing that’s never changed about him.  This story, which originally appeared in the New Horizons, portrays Stander as the good man he is, just a regular guy who helps his friends, including some fellow ex-boxers who have fallen on various hard times.  To a man, his buddies love him.  It’s heartening to know that Stander is now happily remarried and writing his life story.  It should be a helluva read.

Ron Stander, Still Making the Rounds for Friends in Need

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the New Horizons

Far from the spotlight he inhabited when he fought for the world heavyweight boxing title 35 years ago, Ron “The Bluffs Butcher” Stander goes about his daily routine these days in relative obscurity. That’s fine with him. He had his moment in the sun. He’d rather be remembered anyway as a good man, a good father and a good friend than as a good fighter.

“Yeah, right, that’s exactly it,” he said. “I just want to be a good person.”

He lives a simple life, both by choice and circumstance. He may be poor in finances, but he’s rich in friends. Despite his own problems, he aids folks less well-off and able than him, often making the rounds to visit old pals, many of whom he knows “from boxing.” Some, like Tony Novak, Gabe Barajas and Art Hernandez, are ex-fighters. Novak and Hernandez sparred with Stander back in the day.

Fred Gagliola coached a young Stander as an amateur Golden Gloves fighter. Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon is an ex-pro wrestler quite popular here. Stander and Vachon know the highs and lows of life inside and outside the ring. Tom Lovgren was the matchmaker for many Stander fights and at one time managed him.

Each man suffers some kind of health impairment or disability. All befriended Stander at one time or another and he’s never forgotten it.

“They all helped me. Now I attempt to give back in some way. I like to help out. They were in my corner and now I’m in their corner,” said Stander, who variously does chores, runs errands and offers companionship for them.

Lovgren is afflicted with multiple sclerosis. The effects of the advanced disease confine him to a wheelchair. When his wife Jeaninne broke a leg last winter she could not get her large husband out of his chair into bed.

“So I called Ronnie and said, ‘Can you come down and help me into bed every night?’ — and he did,” Lovgren said. “He came down at 10:30 every night and put me to bed. I paid him, because he didn’t have to do that. He’s a good friend.”

Not long ago Lovgren took a fall at home, unable to get up by himself or even with an assist from his petite wife. Enter Stander.

“It was about 10 o’clock at night. I was beat, tired. I worked hard that day and I was all out of gas. I’d just had my first beer of the night when Jeaninne called. ‘Can you help out?’ I went down to their place. He was flat on the floor and I had to pick him up…and put him in his chair. It was a tough lift. Boy, he’s getting heavy. Probably weighs 250. Dead weight,” Stander said. “I about didn’t make it. Jeaninne had to get on his side and grab his pants and pull him up. We got him though.”

Stander’s glad to help the man who so much did for him. Lovgren not only got him fights, but was part of the team that readied him for his May 25, 1972 title bout with champ Joe Frazier in a jam-packed Civic Auditorium. Lovgren prodded Stander to get in fighting trim and stay away from late night beer binges.

“He would always get me to do the road work real good,” Stander said. “He’d take me running, count laps. He was a real disciplinarian. But fun, too. I respected him.”

Before he challenged for the championship, Lovgren arranged what Stander called a “steppingstone” match with future contender Earnie Shavers. Considered one of the hardest punchers in the heavyweight division, Shavers’ blows “felt like getting hit by a night stick or a ball bat,” Stander said. “It was like a whip cracking at the end.” After a slow start that saw him get pummeled, he KO’d Shavers in the fifth. Shavers reportedly had to be carried off by his corner.

That became Stander’s signature win. His most notable loss, of course, came in his title bid. After losing to Frazier, Stander sank into a deep depression and his career nose-dived. “I didn’t have any desire,” he said.

Except when Lovgren got him a marquee match against former contender Ken Norton on the undercard of the Muhammad Ali-Jimmy Young bout. Norton won when the fight was stopped in the fifth due to cuts he opened up on Stander, who was prone to bleed, but to this day “The Butcher” feels he would have had a tiring Norton “out of there in another round or two.”

Coulda’, woulda, shoulda’. “You can’t fight destiny” Stander said.

Away from the ring, the fighter admires how Lovgren has never given up in his own battle with MS. Despite the debilitating disease, Lovgren has raised a family, worked, traveled and maintained his passion for sports, especially boxing.

“He’s been an inspiration,” Stander said. “He’s paid his dues.”

The other men Stander helps are inspirations to him, too.

Former world middleweight contender Art Hernandez lost a leg after a freak fall from a roof, but he hasn’t let it stop him from living a life and enjoying his family. “I’ve got all the respect for him, too,” said Stander, who, like Lovgren, considers Hernandez to have been the best fighter, pound-for-pound, to ever come out of Nebraska. As an undersized but much quicker sparring partner, Hernandez used to frustrate Stander in the gym, confounding and evading the lumbering heavyweight. “I couldn’t hit him with a handful of rice,” Stander said.

Stander admires too how “Mad Dog” Vachon has not allowed the mishap that cost him a leg to embitter him.

“’Mad Dog’s’ a good guy,” he said. “He has a great attitude.”

Through “Mad Dog” Stander met an array of pro wrestling legends, such as Andre the Giant. “When I shook his hand it was like grabbing a pillow,” he said.

When Hernandez first got fitted with his prosthesis Stander brought him over to “Mad Dog’s” place so these two old warriors with artificial limbs would know they were not alone. The gesture touched the two men.

“He did me a favor that day,” Hernandez said.

“He’s got a heart of gold,” Vachon said. “He’s a very nice man. A real softee. He’s the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back.”

Since suffering a series of strokes Fred Gagliola, the man who helped show Stander the ropes as an amateur, has trouble getting by.

“I was just weeding in his yard the other day,” Stander said one summer morning outside the south downtown home of the man he calls Coach. “He can’t do much. I sweep and mop the floor for him.” “He cuts the grass, he throws out the garbage,” Coach said. “Whatever it takes,” added Stander. “I just try to help him however I can. He was on my side in the Gloves, you know. He backed me, supported me. He did favors, I do favors. He helped me, I try to help him now. So it’s pay back.”

Although he can use the money, Stander doesn’t lend a hand for the “couple bucks” he earns “here and there.” “Other things,” besides money, “make him happy,” Vachon said. Like doing good deeds.

Friends and family are all that are left once the money runs dry and the glory fades. “Mad Dog” and “The Butcher” made names for themselves in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Vachon reigned as an All-Star Wrestling king on cards at the Omaha Civic Auditorium. That’s where Stander enjoyed his greatest ring success, topped by challenging Frazier for “all the marbles” in what may have been the biggest sporting event Omaha’s ever seen.

The title fight was the pinnacle of his career. But life goes on. Things change. Stander was 27 and fighting on the biggest stage his sport has to offer — in his adopted hometown no less. Before friends and family and the assembled boxing world he put himself on the line and he failed. The fight was stopped after four rounds, Stander’s face a bloody, pulpy mask. He never went down, though. He pleaded for the fight to continue, but ringside physician Jack “Doc” Lewis made the only call he could given that Stander was blinded by blood from ugly gashes and could no longer defend himself. A longtime friend said Stander cried in the dressing room, sure he’d disappointed everyone. The friend assured him he hadn’t.

The incident reveals a couple things: how much Stander, often accused of taking a nonchalant approach to his training, cared about representing his hometown; and his never-say-die attitude. “I trained hard for the fights I cared about. I wanted to prove I was a legitimate contender,” he said. No one could ever call him a quitter.

“He’s got a heart the size of this room,” Lovgren said from his spacious living room. “When Joe Frazier is unloading on you and you’re still standing, you’re something special. Tough guy.”

Life hasn’t been a bed-of-roses since the Frazier fight. Stander’s contentious first marriage ended. He didn’t get to see much of his oldest two kids growing up. He remarried and had two boys before this second marriage soured. He has custody of the boys, Rowan and Ryan. He tried being an entrepreneur, owning his own bar, but that didn’t last. Long an imbiber, he developed a problem with alcohol and a DWI landed him behind bars. “I was stupid. I made some wrong decisions. I didn’t know when to say no. Let the good times roll. Let the party begin. When I had to go away for three months it was like shock treatment,” Stander said. “I was going to grow up sooner or later. Maybe it helped me to.”

The biggest blow — to both his pocketbook and ego — was losing the best job he ever had, as a machinist at Vickers. Through it all, he’s stayed sober and tried to do the right thing for his kids and his pals.

“He’s a good guy,” Lovgren said. “He’s a good father. He takes good care of those kids. He’s really a caring person. If you ask him to do something he makes a real effort to do that. If I need anything I know he’ll come.”

Largely unemployed since 2000, Stander leads a hand-to-mouth existence that finds him scrounging for discarded cans and car batteries he brings to the recycler for chump change. He also does odd jobs for people who reward him with scratch. “Most of the time I’m trying to hustle some gas money and food money,” he said.

One of his frequent stops is A. Marino Grocery, a South 13th Street throwback, or as Stander likes to say, “blast from the past.” Proprietor Frank Marino joked, “He’s my pacifier. If somebody doesn’t pay a bill we send him out to collect.” In reality, Marino said, “We have him do little things, cleanup a little bit, make a delivery every once in awhile for me.” “Take some boxes out,” added Stander, who on a recent visit grabbed a bundle of flattened cardboard boxes and deposited them in the dumpster out back. “It’s the same at Louie M’s (Burger Lust). We’re paisan.”

It puts a few extra dollars in Stander’s pocket. Otherwise, he gets by on his monthly Social Security check. There’s no pension, no nest egg to draw on. Fighters don’t have retirement plans. He does have a 401K through Vickers, but he’s had to dip into it to make ends meet. All of which makes things tight for a man raising his two youngest boys alone. One silver lining is that his house, a mere two blocks from Rosenblatt Stadium, is paid for. Another is that his son Rowan, a senior at Creighton Prep, is a top wrestler who might earn a college athletic scholarship.

Stander’s a robust 62, but he has health issues. He’s overweight, with high blood pressure and diabetes. He’s missing several teeth. For comic relief he slips his dentures out and opens wide to show his bare mouth. He has trouble remembering things. It’s what becomes of old fighters, even one as strong as an ox like him

He doesn’t complain much, except to bemoan the loss of that machinist’s job at Vickers, where he operated drill presses, grinders and lathes. The Omaha plant closed just before Christmas 2000, leaving him and more than 1,000 co-workers out in the cold. He was 55, an age when it’s hard to start over. With only a high school education and no marketable skills, he’s got few prospects.

“When Vickers closed up, that was it, that was the final straw for me,” he said, “because by the time you’re 55 or 60, if you’re not locked into something, you’re done, you’re screwed. So I’m screwed.”

He sometimes wonders if he did the right thing pursuing a boxing career. He began at Vickers in ‘65 while still an amateur. After turning pro in ‘69 he quit his job, even though his early purses were negligible. He got $75 his first fight. A few hundred each the next few bouts. Until Frazier his biggest purse was a few thousand.

“I had a good job at Vickers…If I had stayed there all those years and not taken a shot at the title I’d be retired right now. I went back to Vickers in ‘93 and when I finally started getting the big money in ‘95 they closed the plant. That’s what grieved me. People say, ‘Well, you can start over and work your way up again’ Yeah, right, whatever.”

Men his age aren’t in demand by employers.

“I’m ready to work, but people don’t want to hire ya. I’ve talked to friends in construction and they say, ‘We’re looking for guys 35, not 55. I talked to a friend in the heating and air business and he said, ‘Well, you know, Ron, at your age we don’t want you to be up on a roof when it’s 120 degrees working on an air conditioning unit. You could have a heart attack.’ There again, the age factor.”

He did attend Vatterott College to learn a trade. He was an apartment maintenance man, but tired of tenants calling in the middle of the night demanding their leaking toilets be fixed. His pride won’t let him take an $8 or $9-an-hour job. Until a few years ago he made extra dough refereeing boxing matches in Nebraska, Iowa, the Dakotas and Minnesota. He even did a few televised title bouts. But those gigs dried up with the loss of independent promoters. He’s shut out by the casinos, where the fight action is these days, and their contract refs. Besides, with two boys, in his care he can’t be gone on those overnighters anymore.

Like the old pug in Requiem for a Heavyweight, he’s at a loss what to do now. Fighting is all he knew. For a time he did have his own bar, The Sportsman’s Club, but his weakness for the drink made that an unhealthy environment for him to be in. He’s clean and sober now, but that alone doesn’t pay the bills.

Money worries nag at him, especially with the boys to clothe and feed. “It’s a struggle,” he said. “We live on $953 a month Social Security.”

Come College World Series time he pulls in some much-needed cash parking fans’ cars, at $5 a pop, on his property. His record for one game is 26 vehicles. But that happens only two weeks a year. He also makes some money from autograph signings he does in Omaha, Lincoln, Des Monies, et cetera.

Enough time has passed that he doesn’t carry the cachet he once did, when his mug and name were enough to buy him drinks and meals and perks wherever he went. As Omaha’s last Great White Hope, everyone wanted a piece of him then.

“It’s not like it used to be,” he said.

The Vickers job seemed like a sure thing and then, poof, it was gone — the steady paycheck, the security, his self-esteem. “When I had money, when I had a job,” life was good, he said, “before things went from sugar to *** in a short time.”

Quicker than you can say, Whatever happened to?, the career club fighter blew the six-figure purse he earned for his only shot at immortality. There were a handful of other big paydays. But the pay outs in his era were small potatoes compared to the millions contenders command today.

Long gone are the days when media hounded him for quotes. His last real exposure came in 2001, when he appeared with Joe Frazier, the man who gave him a Rockyesque chance at the title. For only the second time since that fight, the two warriors met — for a Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Midlands promotional event in Omaha. In the way that old combatants do, they embraced like long lost buddies. They were never close, but the mutual respect is real.

The ensuing years wrought much change. Their hair’s flecked with gray, their mid-sections grown soft, their speech slowed. Yet, to their good fortune, each shows few effects from the punishing blows to the head they absorbed as sluggers who took many shots to land one of their own. They still have their wits about them.

But Stander’s life is a far cry from the ex-champ’s. Frazier is an icon within the larger sports canon for his Olympic gold medal, undisputed heavyweight crown, his three memorable fights with Muhammad Ali and the dramatic way he lost the championship against George Foreman. He has his own gym and other business interests in his hometown of Philly. His much sought-after autograph brings hundreds of dollars, compared to a fraction of that for Stander’s.

Where Frazier is a featured storyline in boxing history, “The Butcher” is a sidebar and footnote. Or an answer to a trivia question: Who was the last fighter Joe Frazier beat while world champ? Ron Stander. Stander’s match with “Smokin’ Joe” came between Frazier’s two most historic fights — eight months after beating Ali at New York’s Madison Square Garden and eight months before being brutally beaten in Jamaica by Foreman, who took the crown only to lose it a year later to Ali.

The boxing world can be a small community. Even though Stander’s career is
forgettable by all-time Ring Magazine standards, he’ll always be a part of boxing history for having fought for the title. The fight occasionally shows up on ESPN Classic. His bid, too, came at a time when the title was still unified. Plus, he squared off with some of the sport’s biggest names — Frazier, Shavers, Norton, Gerrie Coetzee. Then there’s the fact his career intersected with other legends, like Foreman, who was at the title bout in Omaha and reportedly saw something he exploited when he later faced and destroyed the champ.

Specifically, Stander worked on an uppercut to take advantage of a flaw in Frazier’s defenses. In the third round he saw his opening and let the uppercut fly, missing by an inch. He figured he’d only get one chance and he was right. Conversely, Foreman pushed Frazier off and caught him coming in with the same punch.

Then there were Stander’s meetings with The Greatest. He said on four occasions he was a surrogate member of Ali’s entourage. He said Ali liked having him around for his parodies of Aliisms like, “I’m the greatest of all time.” Stander does a fair impression of Ali, of sports broadcaster Howard Cosell, who once interviewed Stander, and of Mike Tyson, the troubled ex-champ.

Stander met Tyson in Las Vegas in the ‘90s, long after his own career had ended. There’s a story behind their encounter. In preparation for Frazier, Stander manager *** Noland wanted him far from distractions and so shipped him off to Boston to work under famed Johnny Dunn. After the Frazier fight Stander parlayed the connections he’d made back east and went to the Catskills to train under legendary Cus D’Amato. It was D’Amato who went on to mentor the young Tyson.

Stander was in Vegas, where Tyson was training for a title defense against James Broad, when he paid a call on the then-champ. As dissimilar as the two men were, they did share a pedigree in the person of Cus D’Amato.

“He knew all of Cus’ disciples and he knew I was with Cus, so he let me in the gym. No introduction, he just came right up to me, ‘Hello, Mr. Stander.’ ‘Hey, champ, how ya doin’?.’ ‘I’m working on an uppercut that will drive that nose bone into the brain.’ ‘Yeah, that’s a good move, champ,’ said Stander in a wickedly dead-on Tyson impersonation — childlike voice, silly lisp and all. “He was something.”

“The Butcher” even ended up in a film, The Mouse, based on the life of his real-life friend, ex-boxer Bruce “The Mouse” Strauss.

Stander also hung out with non-sports celebrities — as a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones and The Eagles. He said Evel Knievel, whom he got to know, offered him $3,500 to work the security detail for his Snake River Canyon jump. Instead, Stander took a fight in Hawaii, where he’d never been, for the same money.

All these brushes with fame please Stander, but as he likes to say, “That and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee.”

He experienced about everything you can in boxing. Good, bad, indifferent. He never really announced his retirement, but he knew when it was time to quit.

“You know when you’re almost done,” he said. “You don’t have the desire or the hunger. You’re tired of the running and the road work. You’re tired working out all the time. The stitches start mounting up. Your nose gets a little flatter. Your teeth get a little looser. Your brain gets a little jiggled. You just lose it.”

If anything, he hung on too long, waiting for one more big payday that never came. “Yeah, that’s probably right,” he said. “There at the end I fought a lot out of shape because I didn’t care. But a guy’s gotta have money. It wasn’t like I was gaining seniority working for U.P.”

Rather than work for meager wages today, he scrapes by. He’d like to run his own gym, but that takes moolah. One benefit of not having a regular job is that he has time to spend with his kids and help friends.

“I try to be a role model and do the right thing for these kids. I have to show them the right way to go,” he said.

As for his friends, Stander said, “They did right by me,” and now he’s trying to do right by them. Gabe Barajas appreciates having Stander as a friend. Barajas, the former owner of Zesto’s near the zoo and stadium, said, “We’re pretty close. He used to come up and help me out there, too, shaking everybody’s hand, bringing the heavy pop coolers up to us. He did lots of things. He ate a lot, too.”

Stander’s visits to the nursing home Barajas resides in bring a smile to his friend’s face. Stander sometimes takes Barajas, who has MS, for drives, down to old haunts. He lifts Barajas from the bed or recliner into his wheelchair and puts him and the chair in his car. Stander said his friend needs outings like these. Otherwise, “that’s his life — in that room and down in the dining hall,” he said.

Fred Gagliola, Stander’s old coach, knows he can count on him. “Oh, hell, yeah. He comes down here all the time to help me out,” Gagliola said. “He’s a good friend.”

Tony Novak, Stander’s first sparring partner, lives alone in a Carter Lake trailer home. Stander frets over his buddy’s health. “Ron’s been a good, true loyal friend for 40 years. He checks on my every day,” Novak said.

The breaks maybe haven’t gone “The Butcher’s” way since he lost to Frazier, but he just chalks it up to “fate” and appreciates what he does have.

“No matter how good you are, how smart you are, how well-built you are, you gotta have a little bit of luck to go along with it,” he said. And you gotta have “a few good friends.” That he has. It’s why he’s not about to quit now. There are too many rounds to go, too many friends in need.

“You gotta do whatchya gotta do. Hang in there. You can’t fight destiny.”

I remember as a kid learning about the rich sports legacy at Boys Town, the youth development center founded by Father Edward Flanagan and forever immortalized in the MGM movie classic. When I looked into that athletic history a few years ago for a story I was struck by the amazing success Boys Town teams enjoyed for several decades and by how the football team in particular became a national powerhouse that actually traveled coast to coast to play games against elite prep teams before big crowds in college and professional stadiums.  Flanagan and his immediate successor seized upon athletics as a healthy outlet and socialization model for residents and as a promotional tool for the campus.  The story of the football team’s many triumphs and travels would make a good movie itself.  Football was the school’s poster sport, but Boys Town enjoyed tremendous success and followings in basketball, baseball, wrestling, and track and field as well.  All the changes that came down at Boys Town beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s resulted in the athletic program suffering several lean years. It’s only in the last decade that there’s been a resurgence in Boys Town sports, not to the heights of its former glory perhaps, but enough to link this era to that earlier Golden Age.

The following story originally appeared in Nebraska Life Magazine. Look for more Boys Town stories in future posts.

Rich Boys Town Sports Legacy Recalled

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in Nebraska Life Magazine

“I didn’t know a jock strap from a toothbrush,” said alumnus George Pfeifer of his arrival at Boys Town from a Kansas farm in 1939. Like some of the finest athletes at Rev. Edward Flanagan’s home for “lost” boys, the future coach had never played organized sports before coming there. Most of the boys were either poor inner city or rural kids who’d played only sandlot ball or street ball. They came from all parts of the country, boys with different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds, and on their shoulders was built an athletic dynasty that became the envy of the nation.

From the Great Depression through the 1960s, the Boys Town football team played elite Catholic prep schools and military academies in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, New York, Miami and other cites. The games attracted dignitaries and made headlines. Playing against the nation’s toughest competition in large stadiums before tens of thousands of fans, the Cowboys won more than twice as often as they lost.

During the same era, Boys Town won multiple state championships in football and basketball, and produced scores of all-state athletes and individual champions, even some high school All-Americans. Its great track-and-field athletes include two-time Olympian Charles “Deacon” Jones (1956 and 1960) and quarter-miler Jimmy Johnson, who won the Pan Am Games only a few years after graduating.

It began with the dream of Boys Town’s founder, Father Flanagan, who was a fair soccer and handball player in his day, and a vocal champion of sports. He made sports an integral, even compulsory part of residents’ experience at Boys Town. Intramural athletics became a big deal. In those days, the boys lived in dorms and staged competitions between their respective buildings to see who were kings of the field or the court. By the mid-1930s, Flanagan hired a coach and pushed for Boys Town to compete in sanctioned interscholastic events.

Born and raised in Ireland, Flanagan made his long-held dream for Boys Town a reality through conviction, blarney and bluff. With his silver-tongued brogue and big sad eyes, he elicited sympathy and loosened purse strings for the plight of America’s orphaned. With his politician’s ability to build consensus, he got people of all persuasions and faiths to contribute to the home.

It didn’t hurt that Flanagan harbored a bit of P.T. Barnum in his soul. Almost from the start of the home in 1917, he made use of the media to further the cause of children’s care and rights. In the 1920s he hosted a nationally syndicated Sunday radio program, “Links of Love,” broadcast from the old WOW studios in Omaha. On a larger scale, there was the 1938 MGM box office smash “Boys Town,” starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Tracy won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Flanagan.

The movie made Flanagan and BT household names. He used his and the home’s growing reputation to bring national figures, including sports stars, to “the city of little men.” The BT archives detail visits by such sports icons as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis. Hollywood celebrities were also frequent visitors. “Deacon” Jones, then learning the barber trade at BT, recalls being summoned with his clippers to the quarters of Flanagan’s successor, Rev. Nicholas Wegner, where he found Spencer Tracy in need of a haircut. Jones complied.

Just as Flanagan earlier made the school band and choir ambassadors for BT, so he did with football. The same year the movie “Boys Town” was released, the football squad boarded the Challenger super liner at Omaha’s Union Station for a trip west, where they played a benefit game against Black Foxe Military Institute of Los Angeles. The film’s producer, John Considine, Jr., made it happen. Among the 10,000 or so in attendance at Gilmore Stadium were numerous Hollywood stars. Boys Town won, 20-12.

The good turnout seems to have convinced Flanagan to take his football team on the road as a gypsy, bring-on-all-comers sideshow featuring orphans from the world-famous Boys Town. The bigger the stage, the tougher the opponent, the more Flanagan liked it.

He would often wend his way to wherever the football team appeared, posing for photos, making pre-game or halftime on-the-field speeches, and generally getting the Boys Town name in the press. A big banquet, often in his honor, usually preceded or followed the game, giving Flanagan another chance to spread the gospel.

BT alum Ed Novotny of Omaha, who played for Boys Town in the early 1940s, recalls the time Flanagan was on the field during pre-game festivities in New Jersey. Novotny says a press photographer asked to snap a few pictures of the famous priest doing a mock kickoff. Sensing a good photo op, Flanagan obliged. As he lined up for the kick, Novotny turned to an opposing player and said, “He’s in a bad spot” – meaning the photographer crouched in front of the ball, holding a Speed Graphic camera overhead.

“What do you mean?” the other player said.

“Father Flanagan can kick. He’ll blast that thing right over the goal post.”

“Really? A priest?”

Novotny will never forget what happened next. “No sooner did I say, ‘Yeah,’ than he kicked that ball and knocked that camera right out of the guy’s hands.”

Novotny recalls Flanagan as an enthusiastic presence on the sideline or in the locker room. The priest stood in the players’ circle to lead pre-game prayers. At basketball games he sat on the end of the bench with players and coaches. He greeted guys by name or with his favorite terms of endearment, “Dear” or “Laddie.”

“When you were in his presence you were the most important person in that room,” Novotny said. The padre fired up the troops and fussed over injured players. “He would tell us, ‘good job’ whether we were winning or losing.” More than a spectator, Novotny said, “he was a participant.”

To compete with the nation’s best, Flanagan hired Maurice “Skip” Palrang, who came to Boys Town after successful stints at Omaha Creighton Prep and Creighton University. Over his 29-year career at Boys Town, he led Cowboy teams to football, basketball and baseball titles. He won National Coach of the Year honors from the Pop Warner Foundation of Philadelphia, Pa., and Nebraska High School coaching plaudits from the Omaha World-Herald.

As athletic director, Palrang oversaw construction of a mammoth field house, modeled after those at Purdue and Michigan State. Its classic brick facade features sculpted panels of Greek-like figures in various athletic poses, stained glass windows and a vast arched metal roof that spans the length of a football field. Great facilities like these helped set BT apart.

Palrang hired coaches to carry BT’s dominance into other sports, but it was best known for football. “It wasn’t like Boys Town would play the weakest teams we could find – we’d play the baddestteams we could find,” said ’50s star halfback “Deacon” Jones. “We knew we played the best teams Skip could get to play. A lot of the players we played against went on to make All-American in college. Some went to the pros. We traveled to play Aquinas in Rochester, N.Y. That was like a Notre Dame prep school. And, whew, they had some tough players.”

Under Palrang, the Cowboys went 75-33-6 in these intersectional matchups. BT also participated in intersectional basketball and baseball contests, but on a far more limited basis.

Jones said players got “five dollars per trip for eating and fun money.” For some, like him, it was their first time on a train, a big deal for “kids that didn’t have anything,” he added. Seeing the sights was part of the experience – Chicago’s Field Museum, New York’s Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. But the road trips, which lasted up to three weeks, were not all fun and games. An instructor traveled with the team and made sure they kept up on their schoolwork.

Lessons of another kind came on the few road trips south of the Mason-Dixon Line. “We would go to some areas where they wouldn’t allow the black kids on our team to stay in the same hotel as the whites,” Pfeifer said. “A few times we had to arrange for those kids to stay with some people in the community. It was a terrible blow to Fr. Flanagan. That’s probably why we didn’t play that much in the South.”

Wilburn Hollis was among a black contingent denied access to a hotel. Although from the Jim Crow South, he’d been shielded from the worst of segregation – the same at color-blind Boys Town. “We were buddies, but even more than that we felt like we were brothers and we just lived like that,” said Hollis, a Possum Trot, Miss. native who became a high school All America quarterback at Boys Town and a signal caller for an Iowa University team that won a share of the Big 10 title. “I never heard anything racial.”

“At Boys Town I never thought about ethnicity or race,” said Ken Geddes, who grew up in Florida and went on to play for Nebraska and in the National Football League. “…We were all part of a family.”

Within that family of athletes, Palrang was the unchallenged head of household. “He was about six-four and probably 220 pounds and he was mean as a goat,” Hollis said. “But he was a wonderful coach. He loved the kids, he loved Boys Town….”

Hollis told of an incident involving Flanagan’s successor, Rev. Nicholas Wegner. (Flanagan died in 1948 on a goodwill mission in Berlin, Germany). Like his predecessor, Wegner was a sports booster, but apparently didn’t share Skip Palrang’s competitive philosophy. Once when BT was losing a football game, the priest tried to deliver a halftime pep talk. Wegner advised the team to do their best, Hollis recalls, “and honestly he used that old cliché, ‘It’s not if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.’ Well, Skip was pretty hot and he said, ‘Bulls__t. We’re going to win this game.’ Monsignor was like, Oh-oh. And we went out and won the game.”

But Palrang’s success was based on more than force of will. Stern but fair, he was known for his precise preparation, a quality that fit his favorite hobby of watch repair. Ex-sportscaster Jack Payne of Omaha recalls Palrang in his field house office “hovered over a well-lighted table…wearing an eye shade, jeweler’s glasses, meticulously at work on a watch.”

An innovator, Palrang used his vast contacts to learn new offensive and defensive schemes from college and professional colleagues, often implementing packages years before anyone else at the prep level. He’d get reels of game or practice film with the latest sets to study. Sought out for his expertise, he often conducted clinics around the country. Pfeifer said that once, at the request of an old buddy, Palrang sent BT quarterback Jimmy Mitchell to Kansas State to help Wildcat signal callers learn the T-formation Skip helped initiate in high school. 

The Cowboys often played far from home, so Palrang sent an assistant ahead to scout. Palrang’s protégé, George Pfeifer, inherited the thankless job. In order to see distant teams, he traveled by plane, train, automobile or any available mode of transport. He once flew into Chicago’s Midway Airport on his way to see an opponent that night in Wisconsin. In Chicago he was bumped from the last connecting flight north. With only a few hours until game time and hundreds of miles between him and the stadium, he was stuck. Desperate, he asked, “Is there any other way?” He was directed to a helicopter pad. For $15 and a slight case of nausea, he arrived “just about the time they were kicking off.”

Skip Palrang’s physician son, Art, who played for his father one year at BT, said besides the advantage Palrang got by scouting opponents “the Boys Town kids in those days… were really tough, tough boys. They weren’t very big but they were tough… There weren’t a lot of distractions out there, like girls. He had kind of a captive audience.”

Palrang also had the advantage of working with kids who came out of BT pee-wee, freshman and junior varsity programs imbued with his coaching systems. By the time they made varsity, kids were well-schooled in the Palrang way. It led to potent team chemistry.

Despite offers to leave, Palrang remained loyal to Boys Town. Art Palrang believes this allegiance stemmed from Skip being an orphan himself. “His mother died when he was two and left his father with three boys and three girls,” he said. “He was always sympathetic to the Boys Town kids, although he was typical Irish in that he would not show his emotions.”

Today, Palrang’s accomplishments are commemorated in a big memorial just inside the field house dedicated in his honor. The memorial is next to a long row of display cases reserved for trophies and plaques won by Boys Town coaches, athletes and teams. There are hundreds of items. There’d be more, except Palrang made a habit of giving them away to kids. 

By the time Palrang retired in 1972, he was only coaching his main passion, football. Years earlier, he’d entrusted the basketball program to Pfeifer, another coach often described as a “no-nonsense father figure.” Pfeifer’s basketball teams went 202-45 (two state titles), and his track teams (two titles) were always a threat. He recently joined his mentor in the Nebraska High School Sports Hall of Fame. 

Like his predecessor, Pfeifer encountered racist attitudes toward his players, as when he started five black players on his state championship basketball teams of 1965 and 1966. One morning after a game, a caller demanded, “Why you playing all them n_____s?”

“Because they’re my five best players,” Pfeifer replied.

Boys Town’s barnstorming era was prompted by publicity and the guaranteed payoff for its football games. But BT was also compelled to travel for another reason. Once it became a winner, it could find only a handful of area schools willing to schedule games.

Despite many attempts, BT was long denied membership in the Omaha Inter-City League, comprised of large Omaha area schools. Pfeifer said Wegner reportedly had to threaten to withdraw funds from local banks to gain admittance. It finally happened when the Inter-City League was disbanded and the new Metropolitan High School Activities Association was created in 1964.

Everyone has a theory about the blacklisting. Speculation ranges from envy over BT’s athletic riches to rumors, denied by BT alums, that it practiced off-season, suited older student-athletes, or recruited prospects. An image of BT suiting up juvenile delinquents, true or not, may have also accounted for schools not wanting to schedule the Cowboys. BT athletic equipment manager and head baseball coach Jim Bayly said that when he was a player at Omaha South, “we were afraid of Boys Town.”

Shane Hankins, quarterback for BT this past season, senses that the “jail” or “criminal” perception still haunts BT. But far from intimidating foes, he said it makes them “want to fight us even harder to prove we’re not tougher.” He concedes BT has some rough players, but points out that the Cowboys win sportsmanship awards.

Even without conference membership, Boys Town had a metro rival. “In the middle ’40s, when Boys Town was really taking off,” Art Palrang said, “Creighton Prep was also in its heyday and they played bitter, bitter battles. Rumor has it the archbishop said, ‘Hey, you guys have got to stop this. We can’t have two Catholic teams fighting each other.’” Adding fuel to the fire was the fact Palrang once coached Prep. There was no one he enjoyed beating more.

Aside from Prep, Palrang said, “Boys Town was obviously cleaning up on everybody and Omaha didn’t want ’em in their league because… Boys Town would have won everything.” By contrast, Prep had long been a conference member. And once let in, BT proved as dominant as feared by soon piling up Metro titles.

Perhaps nothing explains the ostracism better than what one alum called BT being “an island unto itself.” A certain arrogance surely came with all that independence, winning and notoriety. Besides, there was the perception – if not reality – that BT didn’t really need to be in a local athletic league. In fact, cross-country travel was expensive and eventually became cost-prohibitive.

By the time Boys Town’s reign ended in the mid-1970s, BT had evolved from a place where boys lived in dormitories to a family housing model where residents – girls too – live with teacher parents. Changes in the way BT works with youth lowered the number of residents from a high of about a thousand (elementary and high school combined) to about half that today, and decreased the average stay from six or eight years to about 18 months. The smaller enrollment forced BT to drop from the big school to small school ranks, and the shorter stays gave coaches less time to develop athletes and mold teams. For years, BT athletic prowess declined.

Today’s BT coaches are again turning out winning teams and top athletes, their job complicated by kids who present complex behavioral disorders. BT teams again compete for titles, but in Class C1, not Class A. The football team has its rivals, but a road trip today is an hour by bus, not overnight by train.

Girls and Boys Town (as the institution has been known since 2000) still uses athletics to further its mission of helping at-risk youth develop life skills that prepare them for adulthood. Head football coach Kevin Kush sets a high bar for his players, and makes no exceptions in holding them accountable. By late September 2006, he’d already let a few of his best players go for violating team rules, which brought his varsity squad down to 26. He could have supplemented the varsity by promoting JV players, but he refused, saying, “They haven’t paid the price. I’m not going to change my philosophy. I’m not going to lower my standards. See, these kids have standards lowered for them for their whole lives. We don’t do that. We want our kids to be committed to something and a lot of them have never been committed to anything.”

This past season’s star quarterback, Shane Hankins, said he appreciates that coaches and others care enough to make football special again. “Our goal is to achieve, to shoot for something in our lives some people say is impossible for us to do since we’re here. But we prove them wrong. We want to bring more winning to this campus because before we came here, most of us weren’t recognized as winners.”

All last basketball season, head boys basketball coach Tom Krehbiel relied heavily on an unofficial assistant, the 81-year-old George Pfeifer who, despite health woes, came to practices weekly to distill some of his wisdom to players young enough to be his great-grandchildren. Pfeifer’s championship teams of 1965 and ’66 are still regarded as two of Nebraska’s best high school basketball teams ever.

“I wanted to get him involved in the program,” Krehbiel said of Pfeifer. “I reached out to him. We ate lunch, hit it off and he’s been a big part of our program ever since. I don’t think it’s a coincidence we started winning since then. Coach has been a great mentor to me and just a great resource for us. For our current players he’s a link to success.”

After last year’s team won Boys Town’s first state basketball championship in 40 years, guard Dwaine Wright dedicated the victory to Pfeifer live on Nebraska Educational Television.

Pfeifer said that after a period of adjustment, he and the team forged a strong bond. “When I’d come out there, some of the kids warming up before the game would come over and say, ‘God, we’re glad to see you coach. You feeling alright? We’re going to play hard for you.’ That last night when they accepted the trophy the one kid held it up and said, ‘This is for you, Coach Pfeifer…’ Those are the kind of kids….” Choked with emotion, Pfeifer’s voice trailed off.

The experience brought him full circle to how as a kid he was welcomed and encouraged by Father Flanagan, Skip Palrang and others, and how he did the same for kids as a BT coach, vocational education teacher and middle school principal. “I knew I wanted to be there to help those type of kids,” Pfeifer said of Boys Town students past and present. “You know, they come there with a hole in their heart. Nobody cares about them, nobody encourages them – they just think there’s no way they can make it. We set up goals and objectives. We praise them when they succeed. When a kid comes up to you and says, ‘God, I wish you were my dad’…then you know you made a difference.”

Note:  The Boys Town Hall of History features displays and a film that relive some of BT’s glory years in football.

When I became aware of the fact that Father Edward Flanagan, the Catholic priest and Boys Town founder whom Spencer Tracy won an Oscar portraying in the classic MGM movie, was close friends with prominent American Jewish leader Henry Monsky, I was intrigued.  Then when I discovered that Monsky was a key figure in the formation, survival, and growth of Boys Town, I knew there was a story to be told.   I like how men of two different faiths found enough common ground to work together for the greater good.  My story originally appeared in the Jewish Press.

Flanagan-Monsky Example Of  Social Justice and Interfaith Harmony Still Shows the Way 60 Years Later

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the Jewish Press

Even as the world grows ever flatter and more interconnected, political, religious, ethnic differences still separate people into divisive factions. One need only consult history or today’s news to see how this distrust of the other is the cause of conflict. Inroads to understanding can be made. The efforts of the NAACP, the Urban League, the National Conference for Community and Justice and many other organizations bring disparate groups together in a spirit of cooperation.

Macro alliances can start at the micro level. All it takes is two persons willing to work toward the greater good. Ninety years ago in Omaha two men — a Catholic priest and a Jew — forged an enduring friendship that made famous a haven for homeless boys, shined a light on at-risk youth and demonstrated the power of unified action. Father Edward Flanagan was an Irish immigrant prelate dedicated to rescuing men from the bowery and children from delinquency. He dreamed of a home for wayward boys but lacked funds. Henry Monsky, a Jew from the Orthodox tradition, was a social activist and attorney with a law degree from Jesuit Creighton University, where he graduated top in his class (1912).

As legend has it, Monsky is the mensch who loaned Flanagan $90 to start Boys Town in 1917. For the next 30 years he served, without pay, as Flanagan’s confidante and legal counsel. Monsky also drew his law office of Monsky, Grodinsky, Marer & Cohen into tending to the home’s affairs. One partner, William Grodinsky, joined Monsky in serving on the BT board of trustees.

Like his fellow mensch, the priest, Monsky was involved in assisting children in the juvenile justice system, a cause he “felt deep in his bones, as Flanagan obviously did, too,” said Omaha historian Oliver Pollak. Recognizing they shared a vision for helping lost boys, they formed an association “of legendary proportions,” Pollak writes in his article, “The Education of Henry Monsky,” published in the journal Western States Jewish History. That association is much documented, even dramatized in the 1938 movie “Boys Town.” A Jewish merchant-benefactor in the film, Dave Morris, is based on Monsky, whose desire for anonymity led him to secure a promise from producers that neither his real name nor profession be used. Columnist Walter Winchel later revealed Monsky as the real Dave.

In 1989 the Boys Town Hall of History and the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society co-curated an exhibition, “Father Flanagan and Henry Monsky: Men of Vision,” telling these men’s story. The exhibit, which showed at Boys Town and the Jewish Community Center, traveled widely. Boys Town plans to display the exhibit again next fall for the home’s 90th anniversary celebration. 2008 is the 60th anniversary of Flanagan’s death. 2007 marked the 60th anniversary of Monsky’s passing.

“The close friendship between Father Flanagan and Mr. Monsky was very unique for its time,” said Boys Town Hall of History director Tom Lynch. “…Father Flanagan had developed an ecumenical outlook on life, especially when it came to helping children in need…Father forged many bonds with like-minded individuals of different races and religions. The first such friendship was with Henry Monsky, who represents the thousands of supporters who have assisted Boys Town…”

The bond of brotherhood these men exemplified lives on today.

“There is a respectful mutuality in the relationship between the Jewish community and Boys Town,” said Father Steve Boes, national executive director of Boys Town. At the 2005 ceremony introducing Boes as BT’s new leader “Rabbi Jonathon Gross of the Beth Israel Synagogue offered a prayer for our kids, our organization and for me. Since that day and in the spirit of Henry Monsky and Father Flanagan, we have developed a friendship meet monthly.

“Our discussions range from the social problems that affect our community to personal issues like family, exercise and prayer. I have come to value our time together and see it as a great extension of Father Flanagan’s legacy. We also have a relationship with Beth Israel Synagogue. Members have helped serve Christmas dinner to our kids who can’t return home at the holidays.”

Just as Boes and Gross make an intriguing contrast today, so did Flanagan and Monsky. Flanagan, the pale, soft-spoken, bespectaled Irish priest. Monsky, the dark-complexioned, loud, lion-headed, larger-than-life Jew.

Just as having a top flight attorney and lay Jewish leader in his corner was a coup for Flanagan and BT, having a preeminent child welfare advocate and Catholic priest on his side was a boon for Monsky and convergent Jewish interests. Each was a Great Man in his own right. Flanagan owned the ear of powerful figures on the national-international stages, traveling the globe on speaking, goodwill and fact-finding tours. He commanded large audiences through personal appearances he made, including many addresses before Jewish crowds, and interviews he gave. He openly supported interfaith alliances and Zionist causes. At the time of his death he was acting at the behest of President Harry S. Truman in appraising the war orphan situation in Europe, a mission he made the year before to Korea and Japan.

Monsky served on many civic and charitable boards and from 1938 to 1947 presided as international president of B’nai B’rith, the largest Jewish service club, at a crucible time in history. As an ardent Zionist he implored U.S. and world leaders to intervene on behalf of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe and supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He helped form the American Jewish Conference (Congress), served as editor of the National Jewish Monthly and consulted the U.S. delegation at the formation of the United Nations.

He and Omahan Sam Beber also established the AZA, the world’s largest Jewish youth organization.

Like Flanagan, Monsky was in high demand as a public speaker, addressing audiences of all persuasions, and enjoyed entree into halls of power. He, too, encouraged interfaith collaboration and served on many Catholic boards.

No one knows precisely when or how they met but there’s no question they saw each other as kindred souls working to save endangered or abandoned youth. The fact one was Jewish and the other Catholic seemed to matter little to them.

Monsky’s widow, Daisy (Hirsch) Monsky, makes these points in the book she co-authored with Maurice Bisgyer, “Henry Monsky: The Man and His Work”:

“The profound friendship and loyal devotion between Henry and Father Flanagan was based on the fact that, despite the vast difference in their formal religion, both believed in social justice and both were willing to work to achieve it. There are innumerable stories of the bond between them…Father Flanagan always knew that Henry could be depended upon to act for the benefit of the underprivileged.”

In her book Daisy recounts the time Flanagan borrowed $25,000 from a board member in order to post bail for a boy charged with murder in Iowa. The priest learned of extenuating circumstances in the case and decided the lad would be better served at BT rather than in a youth detention center while awaiting trial. In a letter Flanagan asked Monsky to smooth over the legalities of it all:

“…Henry, this home is for saving boys, and we cannot let that boy stay in jail over there…I hope you will present the matter properly at the next meeting of the board, and explain what has been done.”

Always the trusted servant, Monsky persuaded the board to approve the loan and its repayment. Up until his trial the boy remained at Boys Town.

The story illustrates how the men shared an implicit understanding of how BT matters should be handled. The symbiotic way they operated is not surprising when you consider the two knew each from the time they were young men.

Ireland born and reared, Flanagan first came to America in 1904. That year or the next he arrived in Omaha on the coattails of older brother Patrick, a priest who started Holy Angels Church on the north side. It’s then that Edward may have first met Henry, who lived nearby. When Edward expressed interest in the priesthood, the Omaha bishop — a fellow Irishman named Harty — accepted him as a seminarian and sent him off to study in Rome. Ordained in 1912, Flanagan was assigned to Omaha, where he celebrated his first mass at Holy Angels. Monsky was studying law at nearby Creighton. After a stint in O’Neill, Neb. Flanagan returned to Omaha in 1913 at St. Patrick Catholic Church. He and Monsky soon worked together — to establish a Boy Scouts of America council and to advocate for youth with juvenile justice system judges and social workers.

A 1945 address by Flanagan at a B’nai B’rith tribute for Monsky at the Commodore Hotel in New York City alludes to their longtime friendship:

“…we have come here to honor a great man — a man with a brilliant mind and a loving heart. A man whose outstanding virtue is his love for his fellow man…Unlike most of you here, I have known him as a boy, a student at the university, a young lawyer entering upon a professional career — a fellow worker with whom it was my privilege to engage in charitable and welfare fields. He is a member of the board of Father Flanagan’s Boys Home, and my own attorney. He is my personal friend.”

The fondness they felt for each other is seen in their correspondence:

Flanagan to Monsky on the receipt of a gift:

“My dear Henry, I have received your wonderful gift…It is very kind of you, dear Henry, to think of me in this way — I don’t know what other gift would be appreciated as much right now. Wishing you God’s every blessing and success, I remain, dear Henry, Yours most sincerely…”

And on the occasion of Monsky’s marriage to Daisy:

“…I am very happy to hear this good news, for I know it makes you happy, and my whole household joins with me in wishing you both every blessing and happiness that this old world can bring to people of good will…”

Monsky, in appreciation of that note, references an honor conferred on Flanagan:

“…I know how interested you are in my welfare, and I assume that happiness that comes to me gives you the same thrill as I experienced when I witnessed your elevation (to monsignor) in last Sunday’s ceremony. I think I know as much as anyone does how well merited this recognition is. With kindest regards…”

And on the occasion of his election to international B’nai B’rith president:

“I appreciate very much your telegram…It is delightful to know, in undertaking a responsibility of this character, that one has the confidence of those with whom he has been intimately associated for so many years…”

Monsky’s admiration for Flanagan is evident in a speech he gave at a 1942 dinner celebrating BT’s 25th anniversary.

“This is a privilege that I would not like to have missed…Father Flanagan, you can be very proud for what you have contributed in the past 25 years…those of us who have been on the board have enjoyed the great privilege, not only in that we have worked with you, but accepted your philosophy of this unique institution that ‘there is no such thing as a bad boy”…It is perfectly understandable that he has become the outstanding individual in America for his work with boys.”

In 1921 Monsky chaired the speakers bureau for BT’s inaugural capital campaign, which bought the land and erected the first building for the campus.

In a letter to Daisy, Flanagan wrote about his departed friend’s service on behalf of that campaign, which raised some $25,000:

“He spent much of his time then in training our boys who constituted his principal speakers on the public platforms throughout Omaha and its environs for this campaign. He took even more interest in making this campaign a success than he did his own business, but it seems to me he did this with everything he took up…That is why he was a great man, a great friend and a great citizen.”

Perhaps the tug of the home and its mission led Monsky to build a home on 90th Street — on then still undeveloped farm land — to be near his “brother,” the padre.

The home and Flanagan became national icons thanks to savvy marketing and the success of MGM’s 1938 hit “Boys Town.” Superstar Spencer Tracy won the Best Actor Oscar for his endearing portrayal of Flanagan and popular Mickey Rooney won new legions of fans as the plucky Whitey.

Even before the movie Flanagan and the home gained national exposure via a weekly coast-to-coast radio broadcast he delivered. But the movie brought a whole new level of attention. From its two-week, on-location shoot in Omaha to its September 7, 1938 premiere at the Omaha Theatre downtown, “Boys Town” was a phenomenon. Thousands of curious onlookers descended on the campus for a glimpse of the stars during the filming, which unfolded in the middle of a July heat wave. There’s some suggestion the Monskys put up Rooney at their home and that Rooney and Henry’s son, Hubert, went out on the town more than once.

At the movie’s world premiere, an estimated 30,000 people filled the streets, sidewalks and roofs around the Omaha Theater. Daisy recalled the excitement of that opening night in her book:

“…the stage setting was irresistible…Klieg lights, loud speakers, all the Hollywood paraphernalia stretched for blocks…as we left the car..the master of ceremonies stopped my husband for a broadcast over the loud speaker…of his speech…In the theater we sat just in front of Father Flanagan, Bishop Ryan, Mickey Rooney and his date and other visiting celebrities. Mickey…wept at all of the touching scenes, including his own. So did Henry, whose emotions were always easily stirred.”

Besides being invited to make remarks for the pre-show program outdoors, Monsky was among the guests introduced inside the theater.

Despite the hoopla, BT officials and MGM big wigs had little confidence in the pic. Flanagan-Monsky gave away the rights to the story for a measly $5,000. The story goes they didn’t think the movie stood a prayer of making money. And they probably weren’t wise to the going rates in Hollywood. Studio files indicate MGM boss Louis B. Mayer lacked enthusiasm for the property even after it’s completion, shelving it for months before Tracy-Rooney prevailed upon him to release it. The rest is history. When the movie hit big a new problem arose — donations dried up as the public assumed BT made a killing on it, not realizing the home saw nothing from the box office receipts. A desperate Flanagan, perhaps at the urging or with the blessing of Monsky, asked MGM to get the word out that BT needed help. Tracy signed his name to an appeal letter sent donors. The money flooded in. MGM, perhaps feeling guilty, gave $250,000 for the construction of a dormitory.

The sequel to “Boys Town,” 1941’s “Men of Boys Town,” was not well received but it still carried the home’s message and name. Where Flanagan-Monsky erred in securing a small rights fee the first time, they negotiated $100,000 for the sequel, which proved a shrewd move when the movie bombed.

Boys Town further capitalized on the films when a nationally broadcast radio serial aired weekly dramatizations based on the lives of residents there.

Up to the time of his death in 1947 Monsky remained a close ally of Flanagan’s and key adviser to Boys Town. He was there for it all: from a fledgling start in an old 10-room house downtown; to the purchase of the Overlook farm for the present site; to an impressive campus build-out that turned corn fields into a “city of little men” with fine educational, vocational, residential and recreational facilities; to the household name status Boys Town gained and parlayed.

The measure of high esteem in which Flanagan held Monsky and his contributions to BT is expressed in this letter to Daisy:

“…Henry was Boys Town…He is as much responsible for the fine things the public sees out there as are my associates and me, for it was through his keen mind and advice that we were able to follow a pattern of prudence and good judgment. Never in all my association with men have I found one who seemed to understand what I wanted to do and who would advise me how best to do it. Over the years we have had many difficult problems…and Henry’s handling of all these matters was one of great satisfaction. I have received from him over the years hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advice for which I paid nothing. It is only within the last few years that I was able to show my appreciation in a small way, and never have I considered anything that I did for Henry a recompense for his legal work…”

The late Hubert Monsky confirmed the selfless nature of his father in an interview for the “Men of Vision” exhibit:

“…when my father passed away, in going through his desk…found a check written to my father for $25,000 by Father Flanagan…and a note attached to it which said, ‘Henry, dear, for years your services have been given to us with no renumeration, and now that we have the funds, you must accept this.’ That check was seven months old — my father would not cash it. That was very typical of the two people. Father Ed recognized what my father had done. He appreciated it deeply and in his fashion he was trying to say…’God bless you, Henry, for a job well done.’ But my father didn’t wish to be compensated for any work that he did for Boys Town because he felt that it was a project for everybody in Omaha.”

Referring to Monsky’s work as a board of trustee member, Flanagan wrote:

“He was one of the most active members of the Board in determining policies, and was constantly concerned with anything which would further the interests of Boys Town. His fine legal mind would shine forth at these Board meetings…and I know that in following his advice we have made very few mistakes.”

Flanagan trusted Monsky’s judgment enough that he involved him in nearly all aspects of the home’s operations and interests. Further testimony of this high regard is found in the following except from a letter the priest wrote to Daisy:

“He was one of the most active members of the Board in the founding of the Boys Town Foundation Fund and in this, as in all other legal matters, resolutions, etc., he personally dictated those and gave much thought and consideration to them.

“Henry’s last and final act was giving advice and counsel in the establishment of the training program in Boys Counseling to be established at the Catholic University of America in cooperation with…Boys Town, which offers a two-year graduate training program leading to a degree, M.A., in Boys Counseling.”

Although neither made a fuss over it, Monsky’s and Flanagan’s nonsectarian brotherhood transcended their vastly different backgrounds. From the start Flanagan opened BT to boys of all races and creeds. While Jewish youths have always accounted for a tiny percentage of residents, one, Daniel Ocanto, was elected mayor of the incorporated village in 2002-2003.

Whatever faith a youth professes, BT facilitates their practice of it. “If you’re a Lutheran, I’m gonna make you a better Lutheran than you are now. If you’re a Jew, I’m gonna make you a better Jew than you are now, ” said former Boys Town director Father Val Peter. Current director Father Steve Boes said, “When we admit Jewish students to campus, we work with local synagogues to secure their religious training, and our kids are always welcomed with open arms.” 

Monsky’s association with Flanagan modeled his belief in interfaith outreach. That’s why this prominent Jew served on the Catholic Commission on American Citizenship and the National Catholic Welfare Conference and on the boards of other non-Jewish organizations, including the Community Chest, the Boy Scouts, the Nebraska Conference of Social Work, the Church Peace Union and the Urban League.

Even though BT’s not Catholic per se, the fact a Catholic priest has always headed it lends it that church’s imprimatur. That was even more true during Flanagan’s regime. As far as the general public and media were concerned, the priest and BT were synonymous, making it a de facto Catholic ministry. That’s why the identification of a noted Jew like Monsky with BT was a model for how Jewish-Catholic relations could proceed both on a personal level and in regard to issues.

“They were men of different faiths,” writes Omaha historian Oliver Pollak. “Both had faith, particularly faith in the next generation….No doubt exists that Monsky and Flanagan were men of great faith whose concern for troubled youth transcended parochial boundaries.”

Every time Monsky’s involvement with BT made headlines, as it did when at Flanagan’s invitation he gave the commencement speech for the 1942 graduating class, it illustrated the possibility of Jewish-Catholic unity. Monsky’s address to the 90 8th grade and high school grads emphasized sacrifice at a time of war:

“You are, indeed, fortunate to have been taught here at Father Flanagan’s Boys Home…that life has significance, that life is purposeful…Thus conditioned, it is expected that you have the necessary equipment to assume and discharge adequately your share of the greater responsibility which each of us must bear in the present crisis…Not unlike other chapters in our nation’s history, the record of these difficult days will be resplendent with the glorious achievements of youth.”

Ties between the home and the Jewish community were strengthened by the Flanagan-Monsky bond. When elected to the BT board of trustees in ‘29 Monsky replaced another Jewish leader, the late Rabbi Frederick Cohn, of Temple Israel.

Just as Monsky’s link with BT generated Jewish outreach with the Catholic community, Flanagan’s link with Monsky led to a close relationship between B’nai B’rith and BT. Flanagan addressed several B’nai B’rith gatherings, including those in Omaha, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He spoke before the Jewish Ladies Auxiliary of the B’nai B’rith lodge in Detroit. He was the keynote speaker for the Jewish Children’s Home of Rhode Island, the Young Men’s Jewish Council for Boys’ Clubs in Chicago and the National Conference of Christians and Jews in Minneapolis.

Evidence suggests Flanagan and Monsky recommended each other for interfaith engagements and appointments, and took satisfaction in doing so. A 1939 letter from Monsky to Flanagan refers to an invitation for the priest to speak before “a very substantial group of Jewish people in Chicago, which I am sure will give you a very acceptable audience…If acceptance of this invitation is possible, of course, I would appreciate it.” The Monsky letter also mentions “reports” about Flanagan’s appearance before another Jewish group “have pleased me very much. I am happy to note the great demand on the part of my co-religionists, and particularly B’nai B’rith lodges, for the message of Father Flanagan’s Boys Home.”

In another letter to his friend Monsky describes the positive feedback a Flanagan appearance before a B’nai B’rith group in Phillie elicited, adding that members expressed “pleasure in the fact that we appeared to be very good friends.”

The BT-BB relationship is one that continues 60 years after the two friends’ deaths.

“The B’nai B’rith historically brings its sports banquet speakers to Boys Town to meet our children” and to do media interviews, said John Melingagio, Boys Town director of public relations. “Their members also have individually or collectively done charitable activities ranging from donations of funds, services or needed items to mentoring or creating opportunities for our children in the community,”

“I just can’t shake the feeling when we do that, that the two friends are looking down and smiling at the successful legacy of their dreams,” said Gary Javitch, president of the Omaha B’nai B’rith Henry Monsky Lodge #3306.

Melingagio added its only natural for BT and the Jewish Community Center, where the local B’nai B’rith is headquartered, should be on good terms as the organizations are neighbors. Each extends open invitations to the other for various programs and activities. Boys Town and the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society at the JCC work cooperatively to update the Flanagan-Monsky exhibit.

Temple Israel senior Rabbi Aryeh Azriel said Jewish-Catholic relations ebb and flow but the “special relationshp” Flanagan and Monsky exhibited serves as an example of how people of two faith groups can interact in constructive ways. He would like to see more such comradeship and collegiality today in serious interfaith dialogues.

Examples of interfaith work abound locally.

Monsky’s alma mater, Creighton University, has a tradition of being welcoming to Jews and promoting Jewish studies. Monsky was invited to make the 1925 commencement address at Creighton. Jews Rodney Shkolnik and Larry Raful were longtime deans of the Creighton Law School. CU’s legal aid center is named after Milton Abrahams. The university is home to the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization, a post held by Leonard Greenspoon. CU’s Kripke Center, named for Rabbi Myer Kripke and his wife Dorothy, promotes understanding between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faith communities. Despite its strong WASP roots the University of Nebraska at Omaha hosts: the Rabbi Sidney H. Brooks Lecture Series in honor of the late Omaha religious leader who worked for social justice and unity; and the Leonard and Shirley Goldstein Human Rights Lecture Series in honor of the Omaha Jewish couple long active in the Free Soviet Jewry movement.

Additionally, Rabbi Azriel of Temple Israel has served on the United Catholic Social Services board and chairs the clergy committee for Omaha Together One Community (OTOC), a faith-based social action group. He’s won recognition for his human relations work, including a Black/Jewish Dialogue initiative he led.

These efforts to be inclusive rather than exclusive and to foster fellowship rather than division coincide with the work of Project Interfaith. The Omaha Anti-Defamation League program directed by Beth Katz brings Christians, Jews and Muslims together to share the gifts of their respective faiths. Katz has traveled to the Vatican and to Israel with interfaith groups.

“Fostering healthy interfaith relations…often begins with relationships. Friendships like the one Monsky and Father Flanagan enjoyed help humanize the other, enabling us to identify and appreciate the values common to both faiths while also allowing us to explore and hopefully to respect our differences,” Katz said.

Similarly, Beth Seldin Dotan runs the Institute for Holocaust Education at the Omaha ADL. The institute’s Bearing Witness project trains Catholic educators to teach the Holocaust in their high schools. She works closely with the Archdiocese of Omaha on project curricula. Sam Fried’s Heartland Holocaust Education Fund supports college-university teaching about the Shoah.

Tolerance is at the core of all these exchanges. Rarely have two men demonstrated the tolerance Monsky and Flanagan did. Their relationship grew out of fondness and, more fundamentally, respect.

As leader of B’nai B’rith Monsky emphasized the need for unity — both among Jews and the general American population, a theme that resonated strongly with Flanagan and his ideals for BT and the nation. In his speech at the 1945 B’nai B’rith banquet honoring Monsky, Flanagan said:

“I consider racial and religious prejudice one of the greatest and most insidious of all ills that attack our social life today…This grand and noble organization over which our honored guest is the international president is to be commended for its far-reaching influence toward bringing to public attention…the urgent need for greater unity and amity among the various nationalities and creeds…This is the mission that Mr. Monsky set out to do as a young man…How well he has done this, you and I know…God bless you, Mr. Henry Monsky.”

Wherever their mutual interests intersected each man embraced the other. The welfare of troubled youth was their common meeting ground. And so Monsky involved Flanagan in his work with the National Conference for the Prevention and Control of Juvenile Delinquency. A 1946 letter from Monsky to Flanagan outlined the conference’s latest resolutions and activities and requested his feedback.

“Will you please, at your earliest convenience, send me your comments upon the foregoing…It was gratifying to work with you in the formulation of a program which has unlimited potentialities for service to the nation.”

Even as the men’s interests broadened beyond Nebraska’s and America’s borders they remained tethered in a way that only best friends do.

Rose Blumkin Jewish Home resident Esther Schwartz Segel was Monsky’s secretary for his three terms as international B’nai B’rith president. She can attest to the hectic schedule he kept flitting across the U.S. by train and plane for meetings, speeches, et cetera. His travel itinerary and business correspondence were so great, she recalled in 2003, she sometimes worked 18-hour days to keep up with it all. Flanagan’s scheduled was no less hectic.

Monsky was away attending to one of his causes, a meeting of the American Jewish Conference (Congress) in New York City, when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage on May 2, 1947. At the time he was speaking about Jewish unity.

“It was such a tragedy that he died so young and with so many plans for the future of Jewish people,” Segel told a reporter in 2003.

News of Monsky’s death reached Flanagan via telegram while abroad on a war orphan mission. In a letter to Daisy, Flanagan described the circumstances of his final meeting with his friend and what the loss meant to him:

“The news of his death coming to me while I was in Tokyo, Japan was a great shock. Before leaving on that trip he prepared my Last Will and Testament. Little did I know…that this was my last business with my friend and legal advisor. His death was one of the great sorrows of my life.”

Flanagan died in Berlin, Germany on May 15, 1948, almost a year to the day Monsky died. A wire from B’nai B’rith officials to Flanagan’s successor at BT, Father Nicholas Wegner, noted the special regard Jews held for Flanagan:

“His warm friendship with our late President Monsky exemplified (the) spirit of brotherhood which we fervently hope will someday encompass all people. Your loss is ours as well.”

Each was mourned by thousands in services that attracted dignitaries from all fields. Testimonials, dedications and commentaries praised them as great men and leaders. In recognition of the special place BT held in the life and work of Monsky and Flanagan, condolences and memorial contributions poured into the home, including many from B’nai B’rith lodges.

Monsky is remembered today by BT in various ways. A street bears his name (and that of his law partner William Grodinsky), as does a donor recognition level. Then there’s the “Men of Vision” exhibit. Similarly, the Omaha B’nai B’rith lodge is named for Monsky. Photographs, paintings and a bust of Monsky reside at the JCC, where Monsky’s legacy looms large.

For anyone of a certain age, shopping at the downtown J.L. Brandeis & Sons Department Store in Omaha was a pinnacle experience for the sheer size, opulence, and wonder of it all.  Any city of size had its equivalent, but I didn’t grow up in any city, I grew up in Omaha, and Brandeis was all I knew when it came to mega department stores.  It was my Macy’s or Gimbels or Marshall Fields. This two-part story is my attempt at taking stock of the Brandeis legacy, which eventually grew to include many stores in many locations, although the downtown flagship store was always the one people remembered.  I certainly did.  I used to go there as a kid with my mom.  It was always an occasion. The family that owned the downtown store and ultimately a whole chain of stores and other business enterprises lived liked royalty, and my story is as much about them as anything. Whether or not you grew up with Brandeis as I did, I hope you will find this interesting if for no other reason than the larger-than-life qualities of that store and that family.  My story originally appeared in the Jewish Press and served as the basis for a script I wrote on the same subject for a documentary film.

Although most remnants of the Brandeis department store empire are long gone, the jewel in the crown, namely, the downtown store building, remains intact, though retrofitted as a condominium tower.  I know a man who lives atop that building in the fabled penthouse, but that’s a story for another day perhaps, another forum, not on this blog.

The Brandeis Story
Part I: The Family-Owned Department Store Becomes an Institution and Tradition

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the Jewish Press

There was a time when every great downtown featured an immense department store. New York had its Macy’s and Gimbels. Chicago had its Marshall Field’s. Further west, smack dab in the middle of the Great Plains, Omaha had Brandeis. As local family dynasties go, few evoke the nostalgia the Brandeis name conjures. That’s because for a century J.L. Brandeis & Sons ruled the department store market in Omaha, serving hundreds of thousands of customers each year.

In its heyday, the symbol of the company’s and the family’s success was the downtown store. Period advertisements billed it as “the greatest store in the West.” Modeled after Marshall Field’s, nothing quite as elaborate as Brandeis could be found from the Windy City to the Rockies.

“Any city of any pretension, any city of any caliber developed a huge department store,” said Omaha historian Dennis Mihelich. “When Brandeis built that store…Omaha was the 20th most populace city in the United States. That meant a city had arrived. It’s kind of like saying you’re a major league city today…If we go back to the turn of the century, what gave a city cachet…one thing would be that symbol. ‘Look where we get to shop.’ They were architectural symbols in the city.”

Designed by John Latenser Sr. in the Second Renaissance Revival style, the half-million square foot, brownstone edifice included ornate ceilings, Corinthian columns and marble floors. Its vast, sweeping spaces contained every imaginable good and service. So distinct was the store, it became a destination stop for anyone visiting Omaha. Its sheer size, fabulous amenities, everything under-one-roof selection and first-rate customer service set it apart from the competition.

“Brandeis was really the source of most of the things you wanted. It was where you bought your first suit. It was where you went to have dinner with your friends…it was 10 floors of just a wonderful array of things,” Omaha historian Barry Combs said.

All things have their seasons and as downtowns lost their competitive edge to suburban malls in the 1950s and 1960s department stores began to feel the pinch. Many closed in the ensuing years. Omaha and Brandeis were no exception. As the suburbs beckoned, Brandeis followed — building a mall, opening outlets.

At its peak in the early 1970s, the family-owned retail chain grew to 15 stores, 3,000 employees and $100 million in sales. As fewer folks shopped downtown the flagship store became a drag. When, in 1980, Brandeis closed the downtown store as part of a general downsizing, it marked the end of an era.  A leaner Brandeis became profitable again by the time Younkers bought it in 1987.  More than 100 years of Brandeis retailing was no more.

The dynasty dates back to company founder Jonas Leopold Brandeis. This family patriarch set The Great Man precedent. Born in 1837, the Austrian-Jewish immigrant was a tanner by trade in his native Prague. J.L. came to the U. S. in his late teens, part of a flood of immigrants helping settle the  frontier. His self-made success story in America began as a merchant in the wilds of Wisconsin, where he traded with Indians. He married Fanny Teweles of Milwaukee and the couple made a life for themselves and their family in Manitowoc.

A sportsman tradition that runs through the Brandeis family began with J.L., whose prowess with a gun became legendary.

He next set his sights south on Omaha, a booming transportation, mercantile and livestock hub with excellent rail and river access. He, Fannie and their four children, Sara, Arthur, Emil and Hugo, moved to Omaha in the early 1880s. J.L. built the first of what would be several downtown Brandeis merchandising enterprises. The first retail venture, The Fair, opened at 506 South 13th Street. By 1888 J.L. and his boys were full partners when they rented a new site at 114 South 16th Street, calling it The Boston Store, a then-popular name for retail outlets. The J.L. Brandeis & Sons name first appeared over the door there and would appear, on building plates, on all future Brandeis stores.

Business soon outgrew that location and in 1891 the family built a second Boston store on the northwest corner of 16th and Douglas, near what would become the anchor spot for the burgeoning Brandeis empire. J.L. was determined to succeed and not even the total loss of the building in an 1894 fire could deter him. He built a new, larger, better store on the same site.

It didn’t take long for the mutton-chopped J.L. to make his mark, drawing much attention with lighted store windows at night and illustrations in newspaper ads. Every Saturday he released a dozen balloons containing coupons redeemable for a free suit of clothes. Thus, from the very start, Brandeis was known as a pacesetter and innovator. These qualities would distinguish the company and the family members who ran it throughout the 20th century.

“It seemed like Brandeis was always very progressive with the things they did,” said Omahan Ted Baer, whose father, the late Alan Baer, was a great-grandson of J.L and the company’s last owner/president.

As a savvy merchant, J.L. knew a prospering city and Jewish community meant more good will and business for Brandeis and so he and his wife immersed themselves in civic pursuits. He was involved in helping establish one of Nebraska’s first synagogues. He, along with Carl Brandeis, a relative he brought to Omaha, actively worked to create a chapter of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith. An Omaha chapter was founded by Carl, who remained active in Jewish activities.

Fannie organized a sewing class for Russian Jewish immigrants and led efforts to establish the area’s first Jewish hospital — Wise Memorial — as a sanctuary from bias. When Fannie died the hospital board paid tribute to her with a resolution:

“With patience and perseverance, undaunted by discouragement, she courageously carried forward her plan of founding a permanent institution…open and free to the afflicted without distinction as to creed or race.”

Fannie and J.L. were also on the committee that promoted the largest event in Omaha history — the 1898 Trans-Mississippi & International Exposition, a five month-long fair of more than 4,000 exhibits on 108 city blocks that drew 2.5 million visitors. The Brandeis’ also served on the city parks commission that extended the system of parks and boulevards.

By the early 1900s the Brandeis name owned currency with customers and vendors. His sons were already running things and they embarked on the family’s biggest expansion to date, construction of the giant Brandeis store, between 16th and 17th and Douglas Streets. Work began in 1906 and the $1 million building opened to much fanfare in 1907, displaying the latest goods from the post London and Paris trade centers.  Eleven-year-old E.John Brandeis — Arthur’s son — was accorded the honor of laying the cornerstone.

Originally 8-stories, the building qualified as a skyscraper by that era’s standards.  Later additions brought the structure to its present height, complete with an Art Deco-style penthouse bungalow atop the 10th floor.

Ads ballyhooed the new store as “absolutely fireproof,” a reference to the fire that destroyed The Boston Store a dozen years earlier.

Brandeis pulled out all the stops to assure the public this store was unlike any before it. Elaborate window displays drew lines of spectators. Mihelich said, “Those window displays were virtual museum exhibits. They would change regularly and would reflect the seasons and the holidays.They were used to entice people in. People literally did window shop.”

Former Brandeis VP Gene Griffin of Omaha said it was a showplace: “People came from near and far to see what was going on…”

Gleaming glass counters and mirrors, polished marble floors and overbrimming bins filled the cavernous interior. “The display was key,” Mihelich said. “Christmas, of course, would be the most important of all.” At Christmas the 10th floor was transformed into Toy Land, a Santa’s workshop-inspired seasonal display that thousands of children and parents visited. Lines of kids waited to sit on Santa’s lap and to have their picture taken with Old Saint Nick. Ex-Brandeis VP Vic Mason of Omaha said, “People looked forward to going downtown and shopping at the store, especially at Christmas time, when they had those fabulous displays on the 16th and Douglas corner and the big Toy Land up on the 10th floor.”

Any time of year the main floor mezzanine was a take-your-breath-away sight with its gilded columns, hanging chandeliers, copper-plated ceiling and brass-fixtured elevators hand-operated by white gloved attendants. A large clock near the 17th Street entrance was a popular meeting spot. A mosaic-tiled balcony offered secluded shopping and custom services. The bargain basement floor attracted teeming crowds. An arcade included an array of eateries — the Pompeian Room, the Tea Room, Hamburger Heaven and a cafeteria.

“…there was a certain elegance to the department store. You had a shopping experience that you certainly wouldn’t have in a big box store today,” Omaha historian Harl Dalstrom said. “…just the surroundings, the showcases, the decor inside the building, the majestic construction of the buildings themselves, the high ceilings, the display of merchandise and, of course, the windows…”

The Brandeis brand stood for something special, representing an ultimate shopping experience unequaled in these parts. A one-time Brandeis VP, the late Sam Marchese, may have put it best when a newspaper quoted him saying:

“When my grandfather came to this country he could speak only three words of English: ‘Hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ and ‘Brandeis.’ From Omaha there are only four real institutions in the state: the University of Nebraska, the Omaha World-Herald, Creighton and Brandeis.”

More than a flagship, the downtown store was THE center for commerce. It’s where people shopped and dined and caught up with friends or associates. It’s where you went to be seen. Where big wigs did business, sealed deals, made plans. Brandeis hosted fashion shows, parties, receptions, graduations and meetings.

Dalstrom said, “You would find going to the big department stores such as Brandeis part of an overall urban experience. When you look at the Brandeis experience you need to consider it too as part of an overall orientation toward during important things downtown..,and so downtown shopping was very much the thing.”

Not to be overlooked, Brandeis was viewed as one of Omaha’s own.

“Locally-owned. Local ties. That was different than all the other department stores. It was kind of funny growing up because everybody I knew either had somebody in their family who did work or had worked at Brandeis,” Ted Baer said.

Every city has its movers and shakers. Big wheels turned early Omaha from a prairie town outfitting Western Plains settlers into a modern metropolis of railroad, meatpacking, livestock, banking and mercantile interests. The names of those who made it happen — Kountze, Storz, Joslyn, Dodge, Reed, Hitchcock, Clarkson, Millard, Doorly — adorn streets and public places. The Brandeis name lives on, too.

The executives guiding the company were more than merchants. They were part of the elite inner circle that called the shots. Through the years Brandeis family members filled the top executive slots in the company, but with its growth Brandeis increasingly looked outside the family. Family or not, the Brandeis name opened doors. When Brandeis spoke, people listened.

“At one time, Brandeis ran this town,” said former VP Helmuth Dahlke. “… in the heyday Brandeis pretty much controlled every corner of downtown Omaha, strategically, so that no one could move in. They controlled the real estate…owned the buildings, the properties. When we wanted something we called and one minute later they called you back. We had muscle.”

“Yes, the Brandeis family and other major corporate executives of Brandeis provided substantial leadership in the business community, in civic affairs, in philanthropy,” Mihelich said. “They did it individually, serving on things like the board of governors of Ak-Sar-Ben…In all of these numerous kinds of activities the Brandeis family and the Brandeis company certainly for the better part of a century were as influential as any of the other major Omaha players.”

Befitting their means, the Brandeis family lived like Midwestern rajahs with their mansions, stables of horses, recreational activities, parties, appointments, titles, world travels and charitable work. Newspapers detailed their comings and goings. Cousins George and E. John Brandeis cut dashing figures with their good looks and active pursuits. Fellow sportsmen, their exploits made much news: George with his prized horses and hunting of fowl in western Nebraska; and E. John riding, yachting, hunting on one of his big-game safaris or squiring eligible young women.

“The Brandeis family were like rock stars,” Ted Baer said. “One of them was on the Titanic. E. John lived like the young Howard Hughes, playing polo, flying all over the place and doing pretty much anything he wanted to do.”

There would be many stars in the Brandeis firmament, but none quite as bright as J.L. By his death in 1903, the company was already viewed as a linchpin in the local economy. An Omaha Bee article proclaimed:

“…its prosperity has been a part of the growth of the city and its faith in the city has been shown by its constant endeavor to grow within the city.”

Even in death, J.L. continued giving, as his will directed generous gifts to several charities, including the Creche, the Omaha Benevolent Society and Temple Israel, beginning a long tradition of charity by Brandeis heirs and descendants.

Following in his footsteps, J.L.’s sons continued as community stewards. Arthur, Hugo and George each served on the Ak-Sar-Ben board of governors. The family’s association with the civic-philanthropic organization would last generations.

After J.L.’s passing, his three sons found their niches. Arthur, the visionary, assumed the presidency. Emil, the builder, handled supervised construction and maintenance of the company’s early building projects. Hugo, the retailer, sent buyers to foreign markets and managed the store’s sales policies.

Cousin George Brandeis joined them at the department store, first at J.L.’s urging and later at Arthur’s. George’s presence proved invaluable when a series of tragedies struck down J.L.’s boys, leaving George to take over.

The first of these tragedies befell Emil. The lifelong bachelor had concluded his annual overseas trip in the spring of 1912, touring the European continent and Egypt with his niece and her husband. For his return trip, he boarded the Titanic as a first-class passenger and died in its sinking. He was 45. His body was recovered on an ice floe by the MacKay Bennett. He was wearing a dark suit, brown shirt with blue stripes, black shoes and silk socks. Among his effects were diamond cuff links, a gold knife, a platinum and diamond watch chain, a gold pencil case, a gold ring, a gold cigarette case and match box, a pearl tie-pin and a 500 francs note.

Personal accounts of the disaster to reach the Brandeis family placed Emil at a card table when the “unsinkable” luxury liner struck the iceberg that spelled its doom.

An old friend who survived the sinking, Mrs. Henry B. Harris, wired the family her own account of her and her husband dining with Emil on the ill-fated maiden voyage and how he proudly boasted to them of his recent travels. Once the ship was damaged and the evacuation begun, Mrs. Harris was put safely out to sea on a jampacked lifeboat and watched Emil and Mr. Harris remain among the throng of men on deck, stoically awaiting their fate, she reported, “without fear.”

Emil was remembered as a solid citizen in a statement issued by the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben published in the Omaha World-Herald:

“In the consideration of his distinguished services in the upbuilding of Omaha and in appreciation in the loss of his loyal devotion to her interests that his home city has sustained in his tragic death, we…have called a public meeting in memory of our late fellow citizen, Emil Brandeis…”

Upon his death, Emil’s will directed funds to the Visiting Nurses Association, an organization the family continues supporting today.

Only months following Emil’s death, brother Hugo died, after an operation, leaving Arthur as the only Brandeis at the helm. Soon, Arthur cast his eye to diversify Brandeis interests with development of the Brandeis Theater, which opened up next door in 1910, joining the spate of motion picture houses downtown.

Meanwhile, Arthur’s son, E. John, began learning the business as a boy, occasionally accompanying his father on buying trips overseas.

With the loss of his two brothers, Arthur turned to cousin George, then manager of the Boston Store in Chicago, to join the family empire. By 1914 a restless Arthur left the store’s leadership to George in order to attend to his extensive realty holdings and to become vice president of Stern Brothers dry goods store in New York, where he took up residence. When Arthur died in 1916, his will left in excess of $1 million in personal property and real estate, in a trust, to his son, E. John.

As a boy E. John had laid the cornerstone of the Brandeis department store. E. John had worked under his father at Stern Brothers, but at 21 was not yet deemed ready to take over the reins at Brandeis, where George remained in charge as general manager. E. John would have to learn the business from the ground up. George mentored the heir apparent.

George’s tenure at the top lasted longer than anyone’s in Brandeis history. He grew up in Lieben, Austria. His uncle, old J.L., was already a success in America when he visited Lieben in the early 1890s. Impressed by his uncle’s tales of riches, young George returned to America with J.L., who put him to work at the family’s Boston Store in Omaha. George began humbly enough — checking parcels for customers.

Upon returning to Omaha to help manage Brandeis he told a reporter:

“It was one of the surprises of my life to find…Omaha has grown to such a thriving city. And I was also greatly surprised at the enormous amount of business my cousin is doing. Why, they are selling higher class goods here…than in Chicago.”

On his watch George is credited with growing the store’s market share. The growth continued despite the Great Depression and two world wars. Just as Arthur Brandeis brought George on board to guide the company, George brought in a key lieutenant of his own, only this time someone from outside the family, Karl Louis, a German immigrant. Brandeis and Louis met at Chicago’s Boston Store, where the two men forged a professional and personal relationship that lasted 36 years.

Louis got the nickname “Cyclone Kid,” as his arrival coincided with the horrific Easter Sunday tornado that laid waste to miles of Omaha on March 23rd, 1913.

Louis was George’s top aide and eventually made vice president and general merchandise manager. Helmuth Dahlke has fond memories of Louis. “He was a great merchant. He was a great guy. He ran the company all those years — under George — but he ran it. Longer than anyone else. I was in total awe of him.”

With Louis looking after the store, George Brandeis turned his attention to developing Omaha’s downtown business district. Always looking to consolidate the store’s position and spur growth around it, George directed the Brandeis Investment Company in providing the land and the impetus for construction of the Fontenelle Hotel, the Omaha Athletic Club, the Elks Club and the Medical Arts Building. All became fixtures on the vital downtown scene.

As Ak-Sar-Ben president George swelled the organization’s membership and led the drive to give Omaha toll-free bridges across the Missouri River. He was crowned King of Ak-Sar-Ben in 1931. Ak-Sar-Ben bestowed on him the honorary office of chairman of the board. Active in the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, George’s leadership extended to serving as a director of Omaha’s Union Stock Yards Company, operator of the world’s largest livestock market, and head of the Central Land and Cattle Company.

Mihelich said, “George Brandeis…was a mover and shaker…with a vision and a passion for his city…His name was associated with virtually everything going on.”

George raised and trained show horses on his farm west of Omaha. Many of his saddle and harness horses won ribbons on the show circuit. He also owned a prized thoroughbred gelding, Hal Mahone, once valued at $20,000. Long before media titan Ted Turner invested in Nebraska’s rich ranch lands, Brandeis purchased a 30,000-acre Sand Hills spread, the T-O, south of Valentine, where he raised cattle.

When Brandeis died in 1948 he was memorialized by newspapers as “a merchant and civic leader” and more:

“Mr. Brandeis’ civic-mindedness reached into all corners of Omaha life. The story of George Brandeis…is the oft-told tale of the immigrant who achieved great business success. It is the story of a man who worked to build his community while building businesses.”

With George gone, cousin E. John installed himself as president. His early immersion in the family business was interrupted by military service during World War I. E. John was assigned a machine-gun unit at Camp Funston, Kansas and later made inspections of aircraft production. After the war he returned to the fold, opening Brandeis’s New York office, from where he networked with big Eastern jobbers and traveled to European markets. He remained in the Army Reserves, retaining a captain’s commission. On many of his store buying trips — to acquire textiles, chinaware and leather goods — his companion was the “Cyclone Kid,” Karl Louis.

In 1924 E. John came into possession of the Brandeis store and investment company held in trust for him since his father’s death. Confident in cousin George’s management ability, he left well enough alone and remained a background figure.  E. John bided his time, waiting for his chance at the top.  t came in the late 1940s.  He would guide Brandeis through the early 1970s.

A dynamic man with a penchant for high living and the outdoors, he spent most of his time at his ranch in California, where he moved in elite social circles. While on the coast or off on one of his many jaunts around the world, he received regular briefings on Brandeis affairs. On monthly visits to Omaha he attended to business. So it was this largely absentee owner oversaw the company at its time of greatest growth.

Change was in the wind, however, and Brandeis would meet new opportunities and challenges that forever changed the company and hinted at its fate.

The Brandeis Story
Part II: The Family-Owned Department Store Dynasty Has It’s Last Hurrah

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the Jewish Press

By 1948 Omaha department store J.L. Brandeis & Sons ruled the roost with its grand downtown emporium. Founder Jonas Leopold Brandeis built an empire that his three sons, Hugo, Emil and Arthur, and a nephew, George, grew. Arthur’s boy, E. John Brandeis, took over as president/owner following George’s death in ‘48.

When E. John assumed control Brandeis was still the only game in town. Its 10-story store was bigger, more impressive and offered more goods and services than any competitor around. Downtown was still the center of everything and Brandeis dominated that retail market. Things pretty well remained that way for the next decade. But the winds of change were blowing. By the late ‘50s-early ‘60s Brandeis faced an altered landscape. The new playing field changed the company’s status and forced a whole new way of doing business. Navigating Brandeis through this transition was E. John and his successor, nephew Alan Baer.

Each Brandeis titan exerted his own style and influence. Without a doubt, E. John proved the most flamboyant. Start with his California retreat, the Open Bar Diamond ranch, whose house was a replica of his favorite big game hunting lodge in Kenya, Africa. A man who indulged his passion for the outdoors, he worked the spread himself. He lived most of the year at the ranch, but stayed in his Omaha penthouse atop the 10th floor of the Brandeis building on monthly Omaha visits. He held court there, playing bridge and hosting parties. The penthouse, appointed in Native American art and big game head trophies he collected, was featured in an Architectural Digest spread. Its interior was inspired by his ranch’s rustic decor.

Despite spending much time away from Omaha and leaving daily operations to others, E. John professed a love affair for his hometown:

“I’m a million percent loyal to Omaha. This is my life. I’ve traveled everywhere, hunted everything, but I still love to come back to Omaha and the store. I was born and raised here and I’ve got a confidence in the Midwest.”

In an address he once made to store employees he spelled out just how closely Brandeis’ and Omaha’s fortunes were aligned. What set Brandeis apart from its competitors, he said, was its local-ownership and community-mindedness. He articulated how Brandeis ties to the area reaped loyal customers:

“This is the only Omaha store owned by Omaha, owned by Brandeis. Nobody can even touch us because we are Omaha and Omaha is Brandeis. All the other stores take it out of Omaha, but we put it back into Omaha and Nebraska. That’s why this is the best store. We are the only store that has EVERYTHING.”

The store that has everything became a mantra. For much of the store’s history it carried full hard and soft lines, from furniture to clothes, including all accessories and assundries. If Brandeis didn’t have something a customer wanted, it got it. No excuses. No questions asked. E. John made the policy crystal clear:

“…if I find we haven’t got EVERYTHING, we must have it…”

“We were very, very keen on making sure we had what the customer wanted,” former Brandeis vice president Helmuth Dahlke said. “Anytime a customer would come to the store and something wasn’t available our clerks had to write it down on a slip and it came through a system to central. It was typed up and then brought back to the buyer with the order, Buy this. The other thing is, we shopped our competition all the time for comparison.”

E. John’s disciplined habits found him riding and playing tennis most days. He was a regular at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, then the center for tennis in the U.S., and at Omaha’s Dewey Park courts. On the coast his playing partners included top pros and movie stars. When he wasn’t recreating, he was off on one of his hunting jaunts to Africa, India, Alaska or some other exotic locale. He bagged lions, tigers, rhinos, bears. He was on safari in Africa when word reached him the U.S. had entered World War II. At his request he went back on Army active duty, serving in the Transportation Corps at bases on the west coast. By war’s end he’d made the rank of lieutenant colonel. He remained on reserve status for years afterwards.

When at his California ranch, he called daily to get sales reports. A top-line man, he always insisted on 10 percent increases across the board, regardless of conditions. E. John declared:

“…I want the store to be running 10 percent ahead because if you don’t run 10 percent ahead you’re running behind…”

The bottom line and details didn’t interest him. He spent an average of one week a month in Omaha, where he conducted inspections, chaired meetings, presided over special functions and hosted guests. No big changes in the company happened without his approval. Said Dahlke, “There wasn’t anything major that would happen when E. John wasn’t around, without E. John giving his blessing. He would call every morning from wherever he was and want to know how business is. He knew exactly what was going on.”

Punctual to a fault, he expected the same from others, especially for the noon executive meeting or the two o’clock tennis game.

“If you were delayed, if it was even 12:01, you would not dare to enter the executive dining room,” Dahlke said. “If you got to the court at 2:01, you wouldn’t play. I mean, he was fiendish about it.”

E. John’s military-style inspections of the downtown store were legendary. With operations manager Ray Powers and other execs in tow, Brandeis would begin his tour on the 10th floor and work his way down to the basement, setting a brisk pace, alert to any speck of dirt or anything askew.

“He marched. He literally marched,” former VP Gene Griffin said. “And the executives that were with him — just making sure to keep up. If they saw something out of place they’d try to hide it before he got to it.”

“He was totally fanatical about cleanliness. I mean, if he saw anything amiss, he’d let you have it,” Dahlke noted.

Always immaculately attired and groomed, he expected the same from his employees, who could expect a stern dressing-down if they didn’t look just right. Knowing he despised long hair on men, managers scrambled to hide, out of sight, personnel with offending locks. Even worse was if he overheard an employee say the store didn’t carry a certain item.

And one never balked at an E. John order or request. “My predecessor made a big mistake one time,” Ray Powers recalled. “Mr. Brandeis was talking to him about something and this guy said, ‘Well, that’s not my job.’ I thought, ‘Oh, he’s dead,’ and he was dead,” Fired. On the spot.

“He was quite a formidable man, and you didn’t walk up to him just to say hello,” said Marcia Baer, whose late husband Alan Baer was E. John’s nephew and the man who succeeded him as president.

Dahlke saw another side of E. John. “He was a very direct, very strong, very firm leader. He was a dominant person but a good person and the most loyal person,” he said. “In those days we had some people that needed to be let go…and he would not allow it. He was very loyal to his people.”

As in any kingdom, Brandeis also had department heads who ruled over their territories like lords. Maury Aresty had the Bargain Basement. Meyer Reuben, “The Famous Fifth,” where high-trafficked hard-lines were sold. Lester Marcus, the main floor. Turf wars were common on the sales floor. It’s what came with high-pressure jobs, strong personalities and rivalries to see who sold more.

“These were the merchandise managers. They were tough guys. Brandeis was a rough-and-tumble environment. We had people working there that were big shots. I mean, they were kings,” Dahlke said.

Away from the fray of the sales floor, things were more serene — usually.

Much as George Brandeis immersed himself in shaping Omaha, E. John made it a point to convene meetings with fellow movers and shakers. These confabs, held in a private executive dining room at the downtown store, would bring Brandeis together with titans of commerce and industry. Their discussions put in motion projects to revive a restructured downtown amidst rapid westward expansion.

Dahlke recalled, “At Brandeis you made it when you became a member of the private dining room and I worked very hard to get there…You would have E. John Brandeis, Alan Baer, Peter Kiewit, Leo Daly, the head of At & T, the head of the World-Herald, and these people ran this town, period. It was a working lunch. Basically, they discussed the city. They discussed projects.”

In line with post-war trends that made Americans more dependent on creature-comforts, E. John, with Karl Louis and Ed Pettis now as his right-hand men, began a modernization program that saw the installation of escalators and air-conditioning. Responding to Americans’ love affair with their cars and a tight parking situation downtown, E. John ordered construction of the 18th Street parking garage.

Affordable vehicles and gas meant greater mobility, a vital economy meant more disposable income, prompting the Great American migration to the suburbs. All of which led Brandeis to look at expanding beyond downtown. Omaha’s mid-town Center Mall was a harbinger of the future. Brandeis kept a close eye on it. When VPs Karl Louis and Ed Pettis broached the idea of leasing land on the outskirts of Omaha, at 72nd and Dodge, for a future outlet, E. John approved the acquisition. Louis and Pettis drafted plans for a dramatic new chapter in Brandeis history.

“They had that property, which was pretty much the end of Omaha. That’s where the streetcars and the buses stopped. It was nothing but cornfields. And they were very nervous about it,” Dahlke said.

Ted Baer, a son of Alan and Marcia Baer, said, “That was pretty progressive thinking…Stores didn’t have outlets like that back in that time. There weren’t malls yet really. They probably took a lot of heat for it, too.” Marcia confirmed the skepticism, saying, “Yeah, it was, How crazy can they get to think this would work?” But it did work.

Brandeis took the plunge in 1959 qirh construction of the $10 million Crossroads Mall, anchored by the first new Brandeis store in half-a-century. Crossroads opened in 1960 to a lukewarm response before the mall caught on with the public.

“We were very disappointed with the grand opening and the initial performance of Crossroads,” Dahlke said. “It was so new, so different. But then gradually it took off and it became a $36-$40 million anchor store for us and a very, very successful shopping center for us.”

The project set in motion an era of unprecedented expansion, including the purchase of Gold’s department store in Lincoln, Neb. and construction of a massive distribution center in west Omaha.

“…the Brandeis family saw that expansion was necessary, that anchoring the entire business on the one store downtown was not likely to continue,” Omaha historian Dennis Mihelich said. Fellow Omaha historian Harl Dalstrom said it showed “Brandeis could and did adapt to the changing times.”

Guiding much of the later expansion was Alan Baer, the next generation to rise to prominence in the Brandeis dynasty. A nephew of E. John and a great-grandson of J.L., Baer was an Army veteran. He grew up in the San Francisco area. On summer visits to Omaha he got a taste of the retail trade. After the war E. John invited Alan to take a greater role in the store’s operations. Alan moved to Omaha and learned the ropes under Karl Louis, his mentor. With Louis’ death in 1959, Baer’s influence in the company grew. More and more, E. John deferred to Baer.

“They had a tremendous relationship,” Dahlke said.

Considered a visionary, Baer became the chief architect of Brandeis expansion with the addition of new stores in north, south and west Omaha, and for the first time — in out state Nebraska and in Iowa. Dahlke recalled, “Alan would have more ideas in an hour than most people have in a lifetime. He was an amazingly mentally agile person.” When E. John was still in charge, Baer would pitch him ideas, pushing for new stores, new ways of doing things. Not everything Baer proposed made the grade but enough did to keep Brandeis ahead of the curve.

“Basically the guy that would sell it to him was Alan Baer. He would sell it to him and he know how to sell it to him and many times he had to…” Dahlke said.

E. John put into words and Alan Baer put into action the Brandeis motto:

“We have to keep rolling. If you don’t go ahead, you fall behind.”

In his last few years, E. John’s active involvement waned except for pronouncements, groundbreakings, ribbon cuttings. He was more ceremonial figurehead than CEO. He continued making inspection tours. He also gave generously: $60,000 for construction of the Hanscom-Brandeis Indoor Tennis Center; and animals and big game trophies to the Henry Doorly Zoo.

Where E. John had little input in day-to-day business, VP Ed Pettis did. “He was a crusty old guy. Very strong,” Dahlke said of Pettis.

Pettis carried on the tradition of Brandeis executives involved in civic affairs. Dubbed “Mr. Omaha,” Pettis chaired the Golden Spike Days celebration in 1939 and directed Omaha Industrial Development Council activities. He lent his expertise to 4-H, United Community Services and Creighton University. He’s best remembered as general chairman of the College World Series when the popular event was still in its infancy. Pettis, along with advertising giant Maury Jacobs and Omaha mayor Johnny Rosenblatt, made the early CWS a success.

“Ed Pettis was the one who really got the College World Series going. Without him and Maury Jacobs, it wouldn’t have happened,” said former VP Vic Mason.

When Pettis died in 1963, Brandeis executive Jack Diesing Sr. assumed many of his duties, among them chairing the series. Diesing is credited with building the CWS into a national phenomenon and keeping it in Omaha. Today, his son, Jack Diesing Jr., heads College World Series, Inc.

“…I think Brandeis had a lot to do with the College World Series being here. There’s a lot of things Brandeis did as a community service,” Ted Baer said.

More than anyone except E. John, Jack Diesing Sr. became the face of Brandeis. From the early ‘60s through the early ‘70s, the executive team of E. John, Alan Baer, Diesing, Vic Mason, Lester Marcus and Ray Powers charted the course. Where E. John and Diesing were public ambassadors, the others were classic behind-the-scenes men.

Much as George Brandeis did with Karl Louis, E. John found in another German emigre, Helmuth Dahlke, an ambitious young man brought into the Brandeis sphere. As the trusted assistant to Alan Baer, Dahlke became an important cog in the Brandeis machine. He would remain with Baer long after the stores were sold.

E. John’s 1974 passing brought an end to an era of bigger-than-life leadership. A newspaper described him as “a fascinating and colorful figure.” In his eulogy, Rev. Carl Reinert said:

“Brandeis believed the God-given pleasures of this world are to be enjoyed with zest….He showed a fatherly concern for the large family of Brandeis employees.”

He was also a major supporter of the Pratt Institute for Individual Instruction. He left an estate valued at $12.7 million, half of which went to the E. John Brandeis Foundation, now the Alan and Marcia Baer Foundation. He also left $1.5 million to nephew Alan Baer, who took full control of Brandeis upon his death.

Where E. John was a fashionplate who lived large, Baer was an introspective eccentric whose austere, frugal, bargain basement tastes fit his simple lifestyle. In his unconventional way, Baer might plop himself down on the floor during a business meeting. “But that’s the way he operated. A little eccentric. But a brilliant mind,” former VP Gene Griffin said. “Totally disarming. He was what I call an ice-breaker,” Dahlke said. Where E. John made a show of inspections, Baer made himself inconspicuous, passing himself off as a shopper. His door was always open but he wasn’t always in his office. He might be out on the floor or playing tennis  – he loved the game almost as much as his uncle — or traveling to some exotic spot.

Baer met his wife, the former Marcia Miller, at Brandeis, where she clerked in the French Room. Besides Dahlke, no one had Alan’s ear more than Marcia.

By the late ‘70s Baer saw the changing retail landscape and realized it posed a threat. The emergence of national discounters like Target and the inroads made by departments store chains like Dillards and Younkers squeezed the market, cutting into Brandeis’ share and putting the Omaha company at a competitive disadvantage. A great booster of downtown — just as J.L., George and E. John were — Baer adored the flagship store but realized consumers preferred shopping at suburban malls. The times were making the giant downtown facility a white elephant.

“He was very interested and he was way ahead of the crew because he felt department stores as they existed in the ‘60s were dinosaurs,” Mason said, “and he was kind of right.”

“Brandeis was a big deal locally, but when you looked at it in the big picture, Dillards was ten, probably, a hundred times bigger,” Ted Baer said. “Brandeis could compete with a Dillards or with a Younkers, but we really couldn’t compete with both of them at the same time.”

“It was very apparent that going forward a private company like ours would have a tough, tough time staying in business with the big boys — the national companies,” Dahlke said.

In a move to streamline operations and maximize profits, Alan brought in new management teams from outside Omaha, the first led by Jim Gibson and the second by Sid Pearlman. Departments were scaled back. Hard line, big ticket items dropped. Brandeis could no longer afford to be “everything to everybody.”

The resulting staff downsizings were tough. Tougher decisions followed, none more so than the 1980 closing of the downtown store — the monument of the whole Brandeis empire — along with closing three other stores. The announcement made headlines. The downtown store’s last close-out days drew huge crowds. Generations of customers and employees expressed their nostalgia. It was like losing a beloved family member or dear friend.

The building remained as a mixed retail and office center but with Brandeis gone the tradition was lost.

The Brandeis store at the Crossroads became the chain’s new flagship. Renovations were made. But try as company officials might, it just wasn’t the same anymore. The oomph and awe were gone. Baer’s decision to close downtown was not made lightly. It meant letting go people who in some cases worked there decades. In larger terms, it meant abandoning the very core of what Brandeis represented.  But as much as he wanted to keep the downtown store alive, he couldn’t.

Ted Baer recalled, “It definitely was not a popular decision, either in the Brandeis community or within the larger community, because Brandeis was really one of the last stores to hang on and keep downtown, downtown. I know it was a very, very tough decision for him. Gut-wrenching. It was a tradition, Brandeis.”

Still, Brandeis moved on and rebuilt its financial health. A fifth generation family member, Ted Baer, was being groomed to take over one day. Just as Alan and Marcia did, Ted and wife Kathy met working at Brandeis.

When Dillards and Younkers tendered attractive offers to buy the company, Alan Baer ran the numbers and decided to sell the family business to Younkers in 1987.  The sale price: $33.9 million. It was a classic case of head over heart. He wanted to keep the stores that were his family’s legacy but Brandeis neither generated the profits nor owned the capital to stay competitive.

Once the deal was struck he didn’t look back, except to offer a hint of regret that Brandeis hadn’t parlayed its success to become a regional giant like Younkers.

He told a reporter: “My goal had been to hang in there until I died. If we had the bucks behind us…if we’d had the finances and the courage, we could have done what Younkers is doing.”

Alan kept ownership of Brandeis Food Service and began Alan Baer & Associates, an umbrella company for wide-ranging business interests — from coffee and nuts to travel services to publishing to sports teams to butterflies. Ted and his father’s longtime assistant, Helmuth Dahlke, joined Alan in the new venture, which gained a reputation for turning around small companies..

Dahlke remains a bit in awe of Alan Baer: “He was a man of incredible curiosity and quick wit. His energy was endless. Alan would ask lots of questions and, to be sure, he knew all of the answers…Alan was a networker. He always worked. He was always on the phone, always talking to someone. He was always exploring something. He went after everything. An uncommon common man.”

Father and son continued the family’s sportsmen tradition: Alan as an avid tennis player and Ted as a championship-level amateur bowler. They bought an amateur hockey team, the Omaha Lancers, that became a phenomenal success under Ted’s guidance. After his father’s death Ted went on to own a second amateur hockey franchise, the Tri-City Storm. He’s since divested himself of his hockey interests to concentrate his sports holdings in bowling with the Thunder Alley and Thunderbowl centers.

Another Brandeis tradition, philanthropy, has continued. “Alan and Marcia were very generous. A lot of their generosity got no publicity,” Dahlke said” Countless examples abound, he said, of them quietly paying the rent or medical/dental bills of Brandeis employees in need. As it has for decades, the Alan and Marcia Baer Foundation grants monies to local cultural, educational and health initiatives.

To the end Alan Baer searched for new endeavors to engage him, always on the look out for businesses to invest in, new challenges to overcome. It’s why Baer & Associates had a piece of so many different things.

“You know what I always thought it was? It was like Brandeis, but not under one roof, because we had everything. We did everything,” Ted Baer said.

Baer, who died in 2002, lived the credo that was the Brandeis slogan under his uncle. E. John Brandeis:

“To build a business that will never know completion, to create an enviable reputation and be worthy of it, to satisfy every customer individually, through quality merchandise and friendly service.”

Marcia Baer admits she doesn’t know much about early members of this fabulous family she married into. “I don’t know anything about them, except they obviously built a place called Brandeis,” she said.

The solid foundation J.L. laid down, and that successive generations added onto, stood Brandeis alone, at the top of the heap among retailers and the city’s leadership. All things have their season,and after a century of success, Brandeis left the scene. Except it will never quite be gone. The downtown building where so much of its history was made still stands. It still goes by the Brandeis name. A dynamic new use for it is under way. Then there are the memories, which never quite seem to fade.

Ted Baer said, “When we run into an old Brandeis employee it’s like we’re seeing an old family member we haven’t seen in awhile. It’s like old home week.” “Yeah, it’s like suddenly a step back in time, but it’s a good step back,” Marcia said.

“Yeah, it’s a very nice warm feeling,” added Ted.

The late Art Storz Jr. was a strange, lovely man whose fierce devotion to his family and to their legacy as successful beer brewers, as civic leaders, as philanthropists, knew no end.  He was a mass of contradictions.  Generous to a fault.  Shy, unassuming, and eccentric to the end.  Getting him to give me an interview the first time was like pulling teeth, and then when he did what should have taken an hour or two became a marathon session of three or four hours, followed by another, before he finally got comfortable with me.  The following story, which appeared in the New Horizons, was the first I wrote about him.  I did a subsequent piece, which I have also posted.  The mansion in the headline or title of the story offered here really was Art’s magnificent obsession.  He finally did have to leave there for a nursing home, where I visited Art a few years ago.  He was as sweet and squirrelly as ever.  A little broken-hearted, too. He’s gone now but hardly forgotten.  He will always remain one of the most unforgettable characters in my life.

The Magnificent Obsession of Art Storz Jr., the Old Man and the Mansion

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the New Horizons

First-time visitors to the historic Storz mansion are unsure what to make of the shy, self-effacing old man greeting them at the front door.  In his ball cap, T-shirt, baggy trousers and sneakers, he might be mistaken for hired help or an overripe guest when actually he’s a reluctant heir to the Storz Brewing Co. fortune.

The 77-year-old eccentric is Art Storz.  He lives austerely in the brawny, brick Farnam Street mansion that his beer baron grandfather, Gottlieb, had built in 1907.  While the sole occupant of the imposing, gabled, gargoyle-adorned home on Omaha’s fabled Gold Coast, he’s never quite alone there.  Not with a well of precious memories to tap.  Memories of a golden bygone era that, for him, is never far away or forgotten.

Anyone familiar with his oft-troubled past must find it ironic that this one-time “heller” ended up master of the mansion after committing some highly publicized indiscretions.  The most infamous episode came in 1943 when, as a U.S. Army Air Forces pilot, he guided his four-engine Flying Fortress dangerously low over a wide swath of Omaha for the thrill of “buzzing” his hometown.

During the brazen stunt, which he describes today with both sheepish regret and cockeyed pride, he used St. Cecilia Cathedral’s spires as pylons to angle the massive B-17 bomber right past the  Blackstone Hotel and over the mansion.  Then he repeated the maneuver.  The sight and roar of a low flying bomber caused a minor panic, including a stampede of pedestrians and rash of auto pile-ups.

“Thank God nobody got hurt,” he said in a recent interview at the opulent mansion.  “If I would of ever hit anything, I’d of wiped out things for blocks.  I could have killed a lot of people.  I think I was a good enough pilot that I didn’t have to worry about that, but it’s easy to say that now.”

Amazingly, after causing all that commotion mid-town he headed west to “buzz” the homes of an uncle and aunt.  “My uncle was shaving with a straight-edge razor when I went through his backyard.  He damn near became Robert “Van Gogh” Storz because he nearly clipped off his ear,” the nephew recalls impishly, adding that his aunt, who liked imbibing, was so shaken that she “was fishin’ bottles out of the chandeliers.”

The stunt got him in hot water with civilian and military officials and he was ultimately given a general court-martial.  He remained in the service, but never went overseas and never rose beyond the rank of captain during a 29-year Air Force reserve career.  His punishment might have been more severe if not for his late father, Arthur C. Storz, a former flier and well-connected aviation supporter.

It was a scandal the family found hard living down.  There were to be others, including a divorce. Always, Storz most acutely felt the disapproval of his father, a stern family brewing chief and taskmaster.  “My dad used to like to put me down because I was kind of the Peck’s Bad Boy of the family,” he said.  “But I deserved to be put down.  I was an embarrassment to the family – and he didn’t like it.  And he didn’t let me forget it.  He really was a good guy, but boy, was he tough.  He’d really take it out on you if you got out of line.  He had a stringent yardstick.”

Storz also lived in the shadow of his younger brother, Robert Hart Storz, an Abel to his Cain and the apple of their father’s eye.  Art suffered by comparison.  Where he was a self-described “rebel,” Bob was a model citizen.  Where he disgraced his uniform, Bob was a decorated hero.  Where he was barely tolerated at the brewery, Bob was made a top executive.

Controversy followed Art in later years too, most notably in the battle he waged in the 1980s to hold onto the mansion in the wake of foreclosure proceedings.  Despite his black sheep image, he has a genuine personal stake in the Storz success story.  He was, after all, the brewery’s advertising director during some of its fattest years – designing multi-media campaigns that won numerous awards, even if his father discounted them.

Inside the 27-room home today, he’s surrounded by mementos that recall an era when his family’s empire still reigned – before national brewers’ predatory pricing strategies forced the sale of the company in 1966.  “It was like cutting my heart out when Storz Brewing Co. was sold,” he said, “because I’d always hoped my brother and I would get a chance to run it.  I loved the brewing business.”

For three-quarters of a century Storz beer dominated the Nebraska market, flowing from taps like pure gold.  At peak capacity, the firm’s north

Omaha plant employed hundreds of workers, ferrying its own fleet of refrigerated box cars and trucks. The Storz name carried enough clout to open doors and get things done.

Storz likes nothing better than immersing himself in such sweet remembrances of things past.  Of rich old times at the mansion – when the family entertained on a grand scale with lavish parties, fancy balls and sumptuous feasts.  When prominent industrialists, politicians, military officials and screen idols were feted there and well-trained servants manned each of its three floors.  When it wasn’t just a home, but a showplace.  If its walls could only talk, oh, the stories they might tell.  Of back room business deals and garden romances.  Of juicy gossip and heated debate.  Of late nights filled with music, laughter and lively conversation.

Fortunately, Storz is around to serve as storyteller and guide, even if it comes hard for someone so shy. He’s never been comfortable being the son of industrial titans and society mavens.

“I was terribly intimidated by it all.  My family left some big footprints and I’ve always been very insecure because I’ve known I was never going to walk in any of their footsteps.  I just wasn’t cut out to be what they were.”

To avoid meeting people he’d make himself scarce at social functions.  “It was so painful for me that I would take a powder.  My brother and sister were just the opposite.  They were polished and self-assured.  I never had that.  I just always felt very inadequate.  And I still deal with that to this day.”

Yet for all his insecurity, he loves showing off the home.  It’s held special meaning for him as long as he can remember.  After his grandparents’ deaths, he moved there with his siblings and parents in 1939. He’s lived there continuously since the mid-’50s.  His father died at home in 1978, and his mother, Margaret, lived there until shortly before her death in 1981.  He helped care for his parents in their final years.  Near the end, his father finally uttered the words he’d always craved:  “He said, ‘Art, I love you,’ and he kissed me on the side of the face.  I always knew he loved me, I’d just never heard him say it,” he emotionally recalls.

A promise he made to himself in 1981– to stay in the home and care for it – still drives him today.   His fondness for it runs so deep that he’s risked everything to save it.  He nearly lost it several times in the face of legal challenges and financial crises.  His fight to retain the home even pitted him against family members.  What made him persevere and pay such a steep personal price?

“It’s been a love affair,” he said.  “It really is a deep feeling of love for the place and for the history of the Storz family.  I doubt if any home in Omaha can even come close to it as far as its history and as far as the significant people that have been in and out of here.  There’s too much history here for me to walk away…I’d go to hell for this house today.  I would give up anything for it – anything.  I’d even give up my life.”

Some say it is his life.  When people arrive for tours, his dour demeanor visibly changes.  His eyes brighten, voice lightens, posture straightens and step quickens as he swells with pride at the prospect of telling the Storz saga again.  And what a saga it is.  A dynasty marked by entrepreneurial spirit, philanthropic generosity, civic boosterism, visionary deeds and fabulous bashes.

Gilded memories are among the few luxuries Storz has allowed himself since renouncing his inheritance during a 1981estate dispute with his siblings.  Aside from straining his relationship with his brother and sister, he said, “That wasn’t hard, because money’s never been important to me.  What hurt really bad was when my kids got control of the money and tried selling me down the river.”  He alludes to when his two adult children, from whom he’s now estranged, tried ousting him from the home.

Since the early ‘80s he’s subsisted almost entirely on his monthly Social Security check, a small pension and the largess of friends.  He has no car and can often be found pounding the pavement many blocks from home.  Except for a part-time helper, he maintains the extensive, well-manicured grounds himself. While recent hernia surgery has slowed him, his passion for the home and its vibrant history remains unabated.

Only with the help of friends has he nourished his dream for the mansion.  A dream for this Omaha landmark and National Register of Historic Places designee to be preserved as a museum and lasting monument to the Storz legacy.

He has indeed made the home a kind of shrine to his family’s storied past.  Throughout are displayed photos, paintings, letters, awards and assorted other memorabilia that document far-ranging  activities and accomplishments.

He’s turned a basement room into “The Eagle’s Nest.”  There, framed photos and newspaper clippings salute his father’s prominent role in aviation, which had its beginnings in World War I flying alongside ace Eddie Rickenbacker.  Over the years, the elder Storz kept in touch with the flying fraternity and keenly followed aviation advances.  As WWII dawned, he counted among his close friends such Air Force luminaries as Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle,  Gen. Curtis LeMay and Brig. Gen. James Stewart, the late beloved actor.  During the Cold War, he played a key role in selling top military brass on the idea of locating the Strategic Air Command here and he spearheaded the development of Eppley Airfield.  He was awarded the military’s highest civilian honors.

Another passion of Papa Storz’s was the great outdoors, and his son has converted a basement room into a mini-“Ducklore Lodge” – the family’s beloved hunting resort near Lisco, Neb. – whose walls practically sag from the weight of so many trophy fish and fowl the old man hooked and bagged.  Family brewing patriarch Gottlieb Storz built the home and two equally impressive family palaces nearby as conspicuous symbols of Storz success.  Edifices to the American Dream made good.   While all three homes survive, only the Farnam mansion remains in the family.  Nothing was spared in its design or construction, which took three years.  Much of it appears as it did in its heyday.   A glaring exception is the interior’s painted-over walls and ceilings, which obscure their original quarter-sawn oak finish.  Storz one day hopes to have the paint stripped and the wood restored, but that project – like others on hold – awaits needed funding.

The mansion’s Old World craftsmanship survives in leaded-glass doors, stained-glass windows, Tiffany lamps, ornately carved woodwork, mosaic tile fireplaces, exquisite murals and countless other fine details.  The pale brick facade includes limestone panel carvings depicting the stuff of the brewmaster’s art – barley, hops, corn.

The third-floor ballroom, where the legendary Fred and Adele Astaire began dancing, is off-limits while awaiting renovation.  The main-floor solarium is a sublime replica of the sun room aboard the famed Bremen oceanliner his grandparents sailed on.  The study, music room, parlor and dining room are arranged and decorated in period detail.

Storz can offer insights about every room, antique and feature and  recall anecdotes of stars (Wallace Beery, Robert Taylor, Arthur Godfrey) and dignitaries (Doolittle, LeMay) who dined there.

Those close to him agree his near obsession with the home is a Prodigal Son’s symbolic attempt to win his father’s approval.  Storz himself said hopefully:  “I think my father would probably say, ‘Art, you did a helluva job.’ I think he really would be proud of me.”

The demands of maintaining an elaborate old home have strained his own meager finances and those of the Storz Preservation Foundation he created in 1982.  Things have gotten so tight at times that the utilities have been shut off.   “I was in some terrible messes,” he recalls.  “I was totally broke once, and I was petrified.”  When he first took on the project, friends and family members considered it Art’s latest folly.  “I felt that way, yes,” said his brother.  “I felt it was too much.  There was too much involved to preserve it.”

Art said he was tempted to sell the home – “to take the money and run” – rather than keep it.  “The reason I wanted to run is because I was afraid I would embarrass the family name.  I really couldn’t visualize managing this operation.  It’s a helluva big job.  I knew it was going to cost a lot of money.  And I thought, ‘Where the hell is it going to come from?’”

But he stubbornly stayed on.  “I never did run because the love’s too great,” he said.  He takes satisfaction in the fact he eventually kept the mansion despite the many hurdles, long odds and nagging doubts. “I gave it everything I had – my heart and soul – because I love the place.  I think I’ve really been tested. There were times when it felt like I’d been in the ring with Muhammed Ali.  I hung in even when I was whipped.”His brother, with whom he’s grown close again, has come to respect his devotion:  “I give him credit.  I don’t know how he did it.  I have admiration for him.  He loves that house.  It’s a love affair – it really is.”

Others still marvel he pulled it off:  “I was afraid he was going to lose the whole shootin’ match and end up on his rear out in the cold,” said Omahan *** Deaver, a fellow flier and lifelong friend.  “I give him credit for seeing it through.”

The constant struggle did take its toll.  As Art explains, “The pressure was just tremendous.  That kind of stress had a disastrous effect on me.  I got really depressed.   I was just browbeat so bad that I didn’t even want to be around anybody.  I let the place go.   And I hate to even admit this, but I got suicidal.”  He purchased a gun for the deed.  “I was really going to knock myself off,  but I never could pull the trigger,” he said.  Storz, who still suffers from depression, adds, “I’d rather take a good whippin’ physically then take one that emotionally tears you into little pieces.”  In the end, he couldn’t bear disgracing his family that way.  Besides, he still had his mission – the home.

Retired Omaha World-Herald reporter Howard Silber, who’s known Storz for years, said, “I don’t think he’d be alive today if it weren’t for that mission and that zeal.  He lives for that.”

Storz survived his darkest days with the aid of friends.  “When I look back and think about the people who helped me, I just thank God I had friends like that.   I’ll never forget what they did for me.  And don’t think it wasn’t hard for me to accept. I feel a great debt.”

His lowest point came in 1988 when, due to delinquent property tax payments totaling more than $73,000, the home was auctioned off at a forced sheriff’s sale.  It was purchased by a bidder who planned turning it into a restaurant.  A judge gave Storz two years to redeem the taxes and allowed him to remain in the home.  When an effort to raise the needed money failed, things looked bleak.  With the deadline only weeks off, a father-son tandem of Las Vegas gambling magnates came to the rescue.  The father, Jackie Gaughan, was a classmate of Storz’s at Creighton University, and when he heard his old chum was in trouble he enlisted his son Michael’s support.  Once the taxes were paid and the home reclaimed, Michael Gaughan became its legal owner and Storz its chief trustee.  A trust fund helps defray the property’s operating costs and taxes.

“If the Gaughans hadn’t bailed me out, I would have gone down,” said Storz.  “They were my biggest benefactors.”  He’s also grateful to the local media for its sympathetic coverage of his plight.  “The media made me sort of like David and the people trying to knock me out like Goliath,” he said.  That depiction suits him fine.   “I’m a staunch competitor.  I would never quit.”

Even with the home’s immediate future secured, he frets what will happen after he dies.  “I’ve got 16 years here of fighting for my life and I don’t want to lose it now.  Everything I’ve done has come from my heart. When I’m gone I hope somebody says, ‘Well, he’s carried it far enough – it should be kept intact.’”

Nebraska doesn’t have mountains or oceanfront beaches.  What few iconic things it does have speak to the work ethic of its people.  Omaha Steaks is a national brand, like Mutual of Omaha insurance or Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett, that people know and trust.  It’s dependable, just like Nebraskans and the Nebraska family that founded the company and still run it today.  This story, which originally appeared in the Jewish Press, is an appreciation for the history and growth of this food industry titan.

This Version of Simon Says Positions Omaha Steaks as a Food Service Juggernaut

©by Leo Adam Biga

Originally published in the Jewish Press

First cousins Bruce and Todd Simon engage in the back and forth banter of media talk-jocks, except theirs isn’t idle chat but the dialogue of two men at the top of a food service industry company giant whose annual sales fast approach a half-billion dollars. In an interview at the headquarters of their family-owned Omaha Steaks empire, 11030 “O” Street, they revealed themselves as wry sophisticates with a knack for brokering deals, managing people and anticipating the next big thing.

After working together 20 years, their close familiarity finds each interrupting the other to complete a sentence or to make a point or to poke fun. They seem to enjoy the give and take. It’s all part of being the next generation, the fifth to be exact, to lead the corporate giant. Each apprenticed under his dad. Each holds fast to cherished lessons passed down from above.

For 89 years the company’s found innovative ways to market fine meat and other foods to residential and commercial customers around the nation and the world. Along the way the Omaha Steaks name has become such an icon synonymous with quality beef that its hometown enjoys crossover brand recognition.

Bruce is president/COO and Todd is senior vice president, but their bond supersedes titles or labels. They’re family. Two in a long line to lead the business.

“You know what we have? What we have here, we have an entire company of people who we trust — that we feel like we’re family with. That’s what we have here,” Bruce said. “That blood bond is really a family bond and it traverses not only the Simon family, it includes our executive committee, all the way down. There are guys I know in the plant that were there the day I started and I feel the same bond with them as I do to my cousin Todd. We all feel a responsibility to each other to make this place successful.”

As is their habit, Bruce turned to Todd, asking, “Don’t you think?” Whereupon Todd opined, “Well, I think it starts with the fact we’re a family business that allows us to really take those kind of family values into the whole business.”

“Not in a Bush sort of way,” Bruce joked. A nonplused Todd continued, “And it shows in the benefits we provide for our team in terms of family leave benefits or vacation benefits or day care. Scholarships.”  “All that stuff,” Bruce interjected.

Legacy is never far removed from the Simons’ thoughts, as their fathers still take an active part in the company, always looking over their sons’ shoulders to ensure the family jewel is well-preserved. Bruce’s father, Alan Simon, is chairman of the board/CEO. Todd’s dad, Fred Simon, is executive vice president. The cousins’ late uncle, Steve Simon, died recently after years serving as senior VP and GM.

“My dad was and is pretty much the operational guy. He’s the guy who ran the meatpacking plant and who was the bean counter,” Bruce said. “Bought the meat,” Todd offered. “Yeah, bought the meat,” Bruce confirmed. “And Todd’s dad was the real marketing guy and Steve (Simon) was the sales guy.”

The three brothers — Alan, Fred and Steve — learned the business from their father Lester Simon, who in turn learned it from his father B.A. Simon. It all began when B.A. and his father J.J. Simon, both butchers, left Latvia for America in 1898 to escape religious persecution. With the meat business in their blood, J.J. and B.A. settled in Omaha, a meatpacking center, and worked in several area markets. In 1917 father and son opened their own meat shop, Table Supply Meat Company, downtown. Their niche was to process and sell beef to restaurants and grocers.

As the decades progressed Table Supply responded to the growing food service sector by supplying meat to Union Pacific Railroad in support of its large dining car services as well as to more and more restaurants here and in other parts of the country. Cruise lines, airlines, hotels and resorts became major customers. Lester Simon first took Table Supply to the public via mail order ads that enabled households to receive packaged shipments of cut beef. In 1963 the company published its first mail order catalog, whose product offerings soon extended far beyond beef steaks. Shipping-packaging advances improved efficiency, helping widen the company’s increasingly national and international reach.

By 1966 all this growth warranted an expansion in the form of a new plant and headquarters on South 96th Street. With the new facilities came a new name, Omaha Steaks International.

The 1970s saw Omaha Steaks take new steps in customer convenience by adding inbound and outbound call centers and a mail order industry-first toll-free customer service line. An automated order entry system was installed in 1987. The first of its retail stores opened in 1976. There are now 75 and counting in 19 states. Visioning the online explosion to follow, Omaha Steaks helped pioneer  electronic marketing as far back as 1990. Omahasteaks.com became the banner web site for what is the company’s fastest growing business segment. A new web site, alazing.com. promotes the company’s convenience meals brand, A La Zing, which offers a line of complete frozen prepared meals.

Omaha Steaks underwent another expansion phase in the ‘80 and ‘90s, consolidating administration and marketing in two new multi-story glass and steel buildings whose sleek interiors abound with examples from the Simons’ extensive art collections and displays that tell the history of the family business.

In a family of arts supporters, Todd’s an elected member of the Board of United States Artists and board president of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.

If Bruce and Todd feel burdened carrying the legacy of a company that boasts two million-plus customers and employs some 2,000 folks, they don’t show it. Guiding their interaction in family and business dealings are the principles they picked up from their elders. By living those principles they fulfill their obligation.

“Our parents taught us to do the right thing. That’s really the only responsibility we have — just do the right thing. Do it all the time. Try to produce every single box of product perfectly. Try to satisfy every single customer perfectly. Do it right every time,” Bruce said. “It’s all about being honest. Everybody in our family has been impeccably honest. We don’t take advantage of people. We sleep good.”

“Right,” Todd said, “and I think it also extends to the environment we create. We could sit around and stress out about the fact we have 2,000 employees and their livelihoods in a lot of ways depend on the decisions we make. And I think we always have that in mind. I also think one of the things that makes it so we don’t stress out is that so many of those 2,000 people think the same we do and they take responsibility for what they need to take responsibility for. And because they do that the stress we carry is minimized.”

“But the whole thing is doing the right thing,” Bruce said. “I mean, if you’ve got building blocks and you set them up properly you’re going to have a very strong building. And that’s what we have and it’s because of every single block. Look, if spacemen came and took either one of us away there’s no question in my mind…this place would continue on because of the values that J.J., B.A., Lester, Alan, Fred, Steve and now Todd and I hold dear. It’s our whole corporate culture.”

The confidence they exude may be attributed in part to the up-through-the-family-ranks training the pair got and to the well-balanced team they form.

“It’s interesting,” Todd said, “because I think in a lot of ways we’ve both sort of followed in our fathers’ footsteps. You know, Bruce is very strong operationally, purchasing, finance…All the sort of back-office stuff is his forte. And mine is the out-front stuff — the marketing, sales. Managing the customer service aspect of that, motivating the front-line people to be people-people.”

“And somebody has to manage him, too,” kidded Bruce, before turning serious again. “Yeah, I think that when you’re a leader sometimes you’ve got to fake it. My dad used to say to me, ‘When in command, command.’ And that’s what I think we do. I mean, our dads built a helluva business and, you know, you always want to top it. I mean, George W. (Bush) just had to get Saddam and we’ve just got to sale a steak to every Chinaman,” Bruce said, smiling.

Unfazed, Todd said, “I think Bruce and I really complement each other well. I would say I’m an optimist and Bruce isn’t as much an optimist…in the sense that when we both come up with ideas I’ll see one side of the picture and he’ll see the other side of the picture. And since we’re both open too each other’s perspective on it, it really helps us balance it out.”

The way Bruce puts it, “I think our management styles complement each other as well. He is really detail-oriented sometimes and I am really detail-oriented when he’s not. And about different things. There’s some stuff that Todd goes, ‘Well, so, get it shipped.’ And I just look at him and I go, ‘OK…well, just sell it.’ He looks at me and says, ‘OK.’” Whatever the situation, they make it work. “Yeah, we do,” Bruce said, “and we get along, which is great, too.”

With two father-son teams comprising the ownership-executive ranks, the potential exists for family disputes that upset the company’s inner workings. The Simons diffuse those bombs with open dialogue and transparent dealings.

“For as long as I can remember the way we operate as a family is we get our ideas out,” Todd said. “We don’t bulldoze over each other. We’re all forceful about our ideas and our opinions, and we’ll raise our voices and we’ll do whatever we need to do to get our point across. But we basically come to consensus and we don’t leave the room unless everyone’s comfortable with the direction we’re moving in.”

“Right,” Bruce said. “We don’t fight about things. If there’s a reason to do something we discuss it and we figure it out. Because, hell, we’re all on the same page. What’s good for one is good for all. We’re never very formal, either. Usually we’ll discuss things over lunch.”

Talking business within the family doesn’t follow a 9 to 5 schedule. “Business doesn’t stop and start at the office for us,” Todd said. “I mean, Bruce could be on vacation and just decide to call me about something that’s on his mind.” “Well, technically, what will happen,” Bruce said, “is when you’re away from the place and the day-to-day that’s when you really get some good ideas and then we’ll call each other. I remember before cell phone were prolific I was in Italy and Todd was in Japan and we had this fax dialogue going on.”

Vision is important in any organization and each year Omaha Steaks holds an off-site brainstorm session with its top managers. Ideas and initiatives fly. “A lot of times those come not from me or Bruce but from the people out there in the trenches dealing with our customers every day,” Todd said. In the end, “Todd and I decide with our fathers where we’re going” as a company, Bruce said.

Two affiliate companies sprung from this visioning — the A La Zing line of convenience meals and OS SalesCo., an incentive division. Fred Simon entered the publishing world with The Steak Lover’s Companion, a cookbook co-authored with Mark Kiffen. Simon adapted classic dishes from recipes developed by James Beard, an Omaha Steaks consultant for many years. More cookbooks followed. Simon’s developed Omaha Steaks-affiliated restaurants. Many more restaurants exclusively serve the Omaha Steaks brand on their menus. The company’s also approaching 100 of its own retail stores nationwide.

Trust in themselves and in the team they’ve assembled explains why the Simons are open to new marketing avenues and new technologies that enhance the ability of the company to serve customers. A toll-free customer service line. Online ordering. In-store purchases. New product lines. Seasonings, sides, desserts. Whatever passes muster with the Simons or in the Omaha Steaks test kitchens gets rolled out.

“While we have innovated a lot here and we’ve developed a lot of proprietary tools and analysis and internal stuff, I wouldn’t say we’ve been on the bleeding edge of technology,” Todd said. “Because I think what we want to do is to use technology that’s going to help us to help our customers. We were one of the first companies to put in an 800 number because it made sense to help our customers communicate with us. When we implemented a centralized computer system one of the first applications was order taking.”

“We’ve had to do these things. The Internet was just very logical — Sure, we should have that. And the fact the entire world put a PC in their living room helped,” Bruce said. “But it was easy for us because when you think about it we were just bypassing the guy on the phone.”

As “easy” as he makes it sound, Bruce added Omaha Steaks has taken great pains to enhance its order-processing systems via the Web and the phone. “I’ve seen a lot of them and I’m proud of ours — I think it’s the best one I’ve ever seen. Our development team has done such an outstanding job with those products.”

“I still think what it gets back to is that we say to ourselves, How do we solve a problem for our customers? Whether that problem is placing an order quickly and efficiently or being able to log onto the web site and access their gift list or whatever it is. And then asking, Can technology help us with that? As opposed to implementing technology in search of a problem” to solve,” Todd said.

Online sales account for an increasing chunk of the company’s profits and Omaha Steaks will accommodate the dot com craze as the demand dictates.

“Our philosophy is be wherever your customers want you to be,” Todd said. “A lot of people love to shop online. I’m one of those people. But we’ve got a lot of customers today that don’t. People still fax orders in. People still mail orders in. People like to come into our stores. So, whatever works.”

The retail segment has “grown as fast as we’ve been willing to add resources internally to support it,” Todd said. Plans call for 15 more stores this year alone. That may seem an odd way to go with cyber commerce on the rise, but he said even a cursory look around town reveals a boon in retail development. “So the economy is alive and well for a number of different sales channels to prosper.”

Success may make some tycoons complacent but not the Simons.

“I feel like with this business I can be an entrepreneur. There’s always new challenges, new products to be developed or whatever. That gives me a lot of satisfaction,” Todd said. “What gives me a charge is just seeing the business grow, being successful in business, messing around with our dads in the business. And just the sheer volume of product we go through — it’s just staggering sometimes,” said Bruce, who figures Omaha Steaks processes up to 250,000 pounds of just top sirloin each week and close to 50,000 pounds of tenderloin a week. That’s tens of millions of pounds of beef a year.

They’ve been at Omaha Steaks a combined 46 years now — Bruce since 1980 and
Todd since 1986 — and there’s no reason to think they won’t be there 46 more. But it was never a lock they’d be there in the first place. University of Pennsylvania grads, like their fathers, each weighed other paths before falling in line. Bruce came aboard first. Right out of college. But not before he looked at “a couple other opportunities.” Neither his first nor only option, Omaha Steaks was a sure thing. He worked there as a kid. “I wanted to do it. I liked the business. I understood the business. When I was at school I thought about the business.” What finally swayed him, was the offer of $1,000 signing bonus his dad put on the table.

When it was time for Todd to graduate a few years later he faced a similar dilemma. “My dad was encouraging me. I think he wanted to work with me. I was a little bit hesitant,” Todd said. Like Bruce, Todd too worked at Omaha Steaks as a kid. But he and some college friends had started a sound production company (they later sold). He had other career choices. He turned to his cousin for advice, asking, Is this a good thing? Bruce assured him it was. The pull of family won out. “I kind of at the end of the day felt like I owed it to my family,” Todd said. “This family has provided so much for me.”

Neither is sorry he made the leap into the family pond. “Yeah, it’s turned out OK,” Todd said in a classic understatement. Working with their fathers has meant learning from the best. Their dads, along with their late uncle Steve, were recently inducted into the Omaha Business Hall of Fame. Todd’s dad Fred is an inductee in the national Direct Marketing Association Hall of Fame. The company’s won awards and praise for its marketing and technology applications.

As for the cousins’ fathers retiring anytime soon, Bruce said, “We don’t say that word. They will never retire. They will never semi-retire. And the minute anyone would suggest such a ludicrous thing they would start coming into the office every day raising hell about every item on the balance sheet. They’ll never retire. They might go on vacation…” And that vacation may last for some time. But retire? No.

A sixth generation of Simons entering the business may be on the horizon. Todd
doesn’t have children and Bruce’s are still quite young. However, Bruce can see one of his daughters already thinking like a future mogul. On a visit to the zoo they waited in a long line at a concession stand, noting how the supervisor let the workers fall way behind, whereupon Bruce’s little girl said, “You know, Daddy, I don’t think that person is doing a very good job of managing that stand. That’s not a very good operation is it, Daddy?” He had to agree, his chest puffed with pride.