Krasnoff’s

Solomon (Sollie) Louis Krasnoff (1907-2005) was the youngest son of Bishopville merchant and Russian immigrant Abraham Meyer Krasnoff (1872-1954) and his wife, the former Jennie Levinson (1884-1947). His brothers were Leo (1903-1969), who was also a longtime Bishopville merchant, and Aaron (1905-1923), who died at eighteen of appendicitis.

Sollie decided to go into business for himself after high school, sometime in the mid-to-late 1920s. His father gave him a stock of dry goods—cloth, work pants, and shoes—from his own store. Sollie cashed in an insurance policy to pay the rent and chose a vacant bank-owned building, the one to the left of McLeod’s Pharmacy. As of 2024, his name remains painted over the store’s back entrance.

Sollie married the former Mildred Brill of Washington, D.C. (1914-1998), and they were the parents of Jennie Krasnoff Caine and Dixie Krasnoff Nathan (1952-1993). Later in life, with Mildred in poor health, Sollie and Mildred moved to Atlanta to be near their daughter, Jennie. A local high school class taped an interview with him for an oral history project, c. 2003.¹ The following is an excerpt from that interview:

“My name is Sollie Krasnoff. I was born and raised in South Carolina. I was a merchant, and I purchased a department store in a small town, 3,000 population, pretty little town I lived in. I still miss it. And I think I knew everybody, and everybody knew me. So, I told my dad, said ‘Well, I’ve saved me up a few little dollars, and I’d like to rent a little store on Main Street and see if I can’t do a little business for myself…I went over to the bank, and I talked to the president…And the president of the bank told me, ‘Sollie, if you want to open a store, just pick—half the town was empty—just pick your choice and I’ll charge you twenty dollars a month rent.’ Wasn’t that something? He said, ‘You pay the rent if you can, and if you can’t just forget it.’ I never missed a month’s rent.”

A prominent member of the Bishopville community, Krasnoff also served as a member of the Bishopville Town Council from 1959 to 1965.

¹ Information courtesy of Sollie Krasnoff’s interview, Jennie Krasnoff Caine, and Rachael Bowman Bradbury’s Images of America: Bishopville and Lee County (2010).