Ingvar Kamprad, Who Founded Ikea and Created a Global Empire, Dies at 91
Source: New York Times
Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish entrepreneur who hid his fascist past and became one of the worlds richest men by turning simply-designed, low-cost furniture into the global Ikea empire, died on Saturday at his home in Smaland, Sweden. He was 91.
His death was confirmed by the company in a statement on Sunday.
He grew up on a farm in the lake-dotted province of Smaland, in southern Sweden, a dyslexic boy who milked cows and found it hard to concentrate in school. His family was poor, and he earned money selling matches and pencils in villages. At 17, he registered his mail-order business in household goods, calling it Ikea, formed of his initials and those of his farm, Elmtaryd, and village, Agunnaryd.
Over the next seven decades, Mr. Kamprad built Ikea into the worlds largest furniture retailer an archipelago of more than 350 stores in 29 countries across Europe, North America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia, with sales of 38.3 billion euros ($47.6 billion), more than 930 million store visits and 210 million recipients of catalogs in 32 languages.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/28/obituaries/ingvar-kamprad-dies.html
I know the first U.S. store was opened right here in PA, just outside of Philly back in the mid-80s. The Philly area had/has a good-sized Swedish presence since it's earliest beginnings back in the 1690s.
I still have a few pieces of furniture bought from around that store opening time. Their earliest stuff truly lasted but the more recent stuff from the past 20 or so years has been been hit or miss.
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RIP, Ingvar.
a pic of Olde-Swedes Church (Gloria Dei) in South Philly (started in 1700 and pic taken in 1862) -
And pic from about 3 years ago -
Finished in 1775, under direction of a Dutch stone mason... I was baptized here...
(1st American Episcopal church) about 4 blocks from Independence Hall and built 1744. It was the church of many of the Declaration of Independence & Constitution signatories and the first 2 Presidents. Many adopted that same architecture "style" (Georgian) in the 1700s (which matches that of the Independence Hall complex - including Congress Hall and the old PA State building)! Have been there a few times (as an Episcopalian - my church is an 1811 building and had a 200th anniversary 6 years ago).
wonderful slide-in double-depth lower cabinet units live on to honor him also. They were purchased when the original Burbank Ikea opened in 1990 and supposed to be strictly temporary until we moved and built in better. 
Well, they got a few more years of heavy, daily duty than intended while we finished raising our children, and I learned to really value them.
27 years later now and my custom built-in bookcases bumped them downstairs long ago, but this cheap, "temporary" 'purchase is still sturdy and decent looking in my husband's office. They're white also, unable to hide abuse, but still shiny with not a chip or gouge, shelves straight as when we put them together and door hinges tight despite everything.
The old Burbank Ikea, replaced by a new one now, is almost more memorable, though, for a friend who walked out on her lying husband one day soon after it opened, rented and furnished a new apartment the next day in one brisk, determined march through, and was back at work the following day. In those days they had that wandering line leading you past everything, and it became part of her path to a new life.
Good job, Mr. Kamprad. 
