Victor Kirschman, furniture dealer, dies at age 86
Times Picayune September 01, 2009


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Victor Kirschman, who followed his father into the home furnishings business bearing the family
name, died Aug. 22 in Rancho Mirage, Calif., of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was
86.

Mr. Kirschman, a lifelong New Orleanian, also had a house in California.

His father, Morris Kirschman, founded the business in 1914. In 2006, it was sold to Rooms To Go
Inc., the nation's largest furniture retailer, for an undisclosed sum.

At his death, Victor Kirschman was chairman of Morris Kirschman & Co. Inc., a holding company for
home-supply businesses, said Richard Kirschman, his son.

Victor Kirschman entered the business early, at the age of 8, accompanying his father on trips to
see what furniture manufacturers had to offer.

He never left the family business, although he did have a brief fling as a songwriter in the
1940s. In 1943, the year he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of
Finance, he, Reba Nell Herman and Freddie Slack wrote "A Kiss Goodnight, " which Ella Fitzgerald
and Woody Herman recorded.

Mr. Kirschman had been a president of the Zionist Organization of America, the New Orleans Retail
Credit Bureau, Touro Infirmary and Junior Achievement.

He had been on the boards of Guaranty Homestead, the Lighthouse for the Blind, the National Home
Furnishings Association, the University of New Orleans Foundation, the Lakeshore Property Owners
Association and the Jewish Welfare Fund. He also had served on the Tulane University Health
Sciences Center Board of Governors.

Mr. Kirschman gave $250,000 to the Tulane center to establish the Morris Kirschman Clinic, a
mental health clinic, as a memorial to his father, who suffered a breakdown in 1940.

Mr. Kirschman received the Weiss Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He
was a member of Touro and Beth Israel synagogues in New Orleans and Temple Sinai in Palm Desert,
Calif.

Survivors include his wife, Margery Alaynick Kirschman; two sons, Arnold and Richard Kirschman;
five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Temple Sinai, 6227 St. Charles Ave. Visitation will
start at 1 p.m.

Burial will be at Hebrew Rest Cemetery No. 3.

Tharp-Sontheimer-Tharp Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.