Peddler’s Cart | Stores | Scrap Yard | Tobacco
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 />  />  />  />  />  /> In the days before Wal-Mart and the internet, the world of merchandise came together at the general store. The countertop and shelving you see here come from Bloom’s store in Whitakers. Born in 1879 in Lithuania, Max Bloom came to America around 1900. He peddled in Halifax County, where he met Lula Peele, a farmer’s daughter. He took her to Wilmington where the rabbi converted her to Judaism, and they married. After trying dairy farming at Wrightsville Beach, Max and Lula settled with their children in Whitakers, where they opened a general store in 1919. In 1924, the Blooms moved to Greensboro and a year later to High Point, where they opened Bloom Furniture Company. Today, Bloom descendants operate furniture stores in Fayetteville and High Point.  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  /> Lou Pollock started his business in Asheville in 1910 with $60 in his pocket. In 1920, he opened a shoe store on Patton Avenue, later joined by his brother Ben. He went on to open stores In Florida and South Carolina, and in 1928 he became the principal investor in Cinderella Slipper Salons. Giving Back Each year, Lou Pollock gave away hundreds of pairs of shoes to Asheville children who could not afford them. He also memorably hosted an annual Christmas party for the city’s poor. Pollock was president of the Mount Sinai Jewish Cemetery, renamed Lou Pollock Memorial Park in his honor.
 />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  /> Having worked for twelve years as traveling salesmen for their father’s Baltimore wholesale business, Moses and Ceasar Cone in 1894 scraped together money to open a textile-making factory in Greensboro. The business grew into an empire of eighteen mills and two finishing plants in three states, employing over 16,000 workers. Many of these workers lived in mill villages, with houses, schools, and community centers owned by the company. Giving Back The Cones were outsized in their philanthropies as well as in their industries. Cone sisters Etta and Claribel, intimates of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso in Paris. donated art to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro. Ceasar supported the American Jewish Committee and the YMCA. The family donated the Hayes-Taylor YMCA to serve Greensboro’s African American community. Moses lived on 3.500 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Blowing Rock, where his wife. Bertha, opened a school for Appalachian youth. The Cones stocked local lakes with fish and forests with deer. They also helped transform a local academy into the Appalachian Training School, the forerunner of Appalachian State University. After Moses’s death in 1908, Bertha endowed Greensboro’s Moses Cone Memorial Hospital.
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