Milwaukee businessman, philanthropist and community leader Harold Sampson has died. The 89-year-old Sampson suffered a heart attack at home in Mequon on June 24.
Sampson was involved and active in Milwaukee’s Jewish and secular communities. He served as the vice president of Mt. Sinai Hospital (currently Aurora Sinai Medical Center) and as chairman of Summerfest. He was a member of the Milwaukee Ballet board of directors and the Young Presidents’ Organization.
He played an important role in raising the funds that enabled Milwaukee’s Jewish Community Center to move from its Prospect Ave. location to the Karl Jewish Community Center campus in Whitefish Bay in 1987, said Jay Roth of the JCC.
“Harold Sampson was one of the visionaries for the development of the Karl Campus,” said Doris Shneidman, Ph.D., founding principal of Milwaukee Jewish Day School, which is located on the campus. “He was there in the very beginning [and] was very supportive of MJDS and the moving of the school to the campus.”
A real estate developer, Sampson spent most of his professional life in partnership with his late brother, Bernard “B.J.” Sampson, who died Feb. 17, 1991, at age 70.
Harold Sampson graduated from Riverside High School and was drafted into the United States Army before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He served in the South Pacific, spending more than four years in the army.
Upon completing his military service, Harold and B.J. Sampson went to work for their father, Samuel Shapiro, at his bicycle shop. That business developed into a local chain called Samson’s (short for “Sam” and “sons”) Good Housekeeping Shops, which sold radios, televisions and appliances.
Because many of their customers thought Samson was their family name, in 1950, the brothers officially changed it, adding the “p” in Sampson to make the spelling more interesting, according to B.J. Sampson’s obituary in The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
In the 1950s, the Sampsons’ business interests branched out to hotels, bowling alleys, commercial and residential real estate and banks, among others. Their company, Sampson Investments, developed the former Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co. site into a multi-use complex containing shops, restaurants and offices.
They owned WVTV-TV (Channel 18) in Milwaukee, the former Red Carpet Inn (later the Grand Milwaukee Hotel and currently the Wyndham Milwaukee Airport and Convention Center), a harness racing track in New Jersey and the corporate predecessor to Time Warner Cable’s Milwaukee franchise, according the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
They also started Mid-America Bank, which was bought by Wells Fargo, and owned Red Carpet Leisure Industries, which operated over 500 bowling lanes across the state of Wisconsin, former manager Dick Richards told the Journal Sentinel.
Sampson was important not just in the world of business and philanthropy. He was an adoring father and grandfather, his family wrote to The Chronicle. He had a special interest in horseback riding and went riding with his daughters every weekend.
Sampson is survived by wife Judie Sampson, nee Kaufer, of Milwaukee; daughters Beth Bauer and Kay (Richard) Yuspeh of Milwaukee and Jamie (Norman) Sherman of Minneapolis, Minn; and six grandchildren.
Rabbi Marc Berkson officiated at funeral services at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun on June 27. Burial was in Spring Hill Cemetery.
The family would appreciate memorial contributions to the American Heart Association.
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