Positivity II: Waldemar Kaminski
Waldemar Kaminski passed away last month. He generosity, for which an appropriate superlative simply can’t be found, won’t be forgotten, nor will his story of success:
Quiet Grocer Donated Millions
Posted by: Robyn Young, Reporter
Updated: 6/26/2006 7:41:42 AMWaldemar Kaminski of Buffalo lead an unconventionally rich life.
He spent a lifetime running his family’s East Side grocery store, Kaminski Meats. He never stopped working, closing the store about one year before he died. He also never moved from his boyhood home, the apartment above the Broadway Avenue store, even though he made millions of dollars in the stock market.
Kaminski donated millions during his life, but didn’t want anyone to know about it, until he died. Waldemar Kaminski passed away on Wednesday at age 88. Knowing the day would come when his story could be told, staff members at Roswell Park Cancer Institute taped an hour-long interview with him a few years ago, and saved the tape, and his story.
This is his amazing life story.
The Kaminski family moved to Buffalo when he was a young boy. Waldemar’s father bought a grocery store on Broadway, and the family lived upstairs. Waldemar would eventually die in this home, but first, he had a remarkable life to live.
In 1935 at age 17, Waldemar opened two stands in Buffalo’s famous Broadway Market. He worked 18-hour days, splitting his time between his stands and his father’s store. That same year, he began investing. One of the first buys was an 87 cent stock in Commonwealth and Southern, a utility holding company.
While his brother went off to medical school, Waldemar focused on the family business on Broadway. A family friend said he promised his father he would keep the store open.
Even when he didn’t have money to invest, he read newspapers and other publications, preferring to see company balance sheets and annual reports. By the 1950’s, he had enough money to really start investing, buying stock in General Motors and General Electric, among others. He claimed in the Roswell Park interview that he had so much GM stock, when he chose to sell it, the president of the company called to inquire why. He also said he bought 17,000 shares of Government Employee Insurance Company in 1973, a company later acquired by Warren Buffett. Those stocks earned him $800,000 in 1995.
And he never consulted a stockbroker.
“It’s all research, reading, a lot of reading. I don’t take anybody’s word for it,” Kaminski said.
Through the years, he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to family, friends, and organizations such as the Father Baker Home, the Salvation Army, Camp Good Days and Special Times, and Hilbert College. He once gave $60,000 to the son of a friend so he could buy a house.
There’s more. Read the whole thing.
