Entrepreneur. He gained fame for being an American grocery store magnate. Born the fifth of ten children in a family of German immigrants, the family lived above his parent's dry goods store in the neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine. With German being spoken in his household, English was the primary language in the local Protestant schools, assimilating him into the American culture. With little formal education, "Barney," as he was called, was forced to go to work at age thirteen to help support his family after the store failed financially, and his father's death a few years later. With his strict disciplinarian mother objecting to his seven-day-a-week job, he was forced to quit his first job in a drugstore. At age 14, he worked alongside adult farmhands near Pleasant Plain before contracting malaria and having to walk 37 miles home while ill. After recuperating, he found employment as a door-to-door salesman for the Great Northern and Pacific Tea Company, eventually transferring to the Imperial Tea Company, which sold more than just tea. When the business became financially unstable, the two owners made Kroger a manager. After turning a $3,100 profit and the owners refusing to make Kroger a partner, he used his life savings to open his own grocery store in 1883 with his friend, B.A. Branagan. Their store, The Great Western Tea Company, succeeded despite several catastrophes, such as the Great Flood of 1884, which destroyed their business. Eventually, he purchased his partner's share of the business. Having a determined work ethic, he specialized to the German clientele by selling his mother's homemade sauerkraut and pickles; kept detailed account books, watching every penny; sold only the best produce as fast as it came on the market for the best price; and knew the neighborhood for fast deliveries, unlike his grocery business competitors. He used pioneering marketing practices, such as having a full-page newspaper advertisement. By bulk-buying and offering meat, baked goods, and vegetables under one roof, he gave his customers a convenience that they never knew. Kroger opened four separate locations within two years. After making a $1.75 million profit annually, he renamed the company Kroger Grocery and Baking Company in 1902. Later the name was simply shortened to "Kroger", and he opened over 5500 stores by the end of the 1920s. He is credited with introducing the low-cost grocery chain models that continue today. In 1912 he was one of the Republican candidates for governor but was not elected. During World War I, when many Americans were questioning the loyalty of German communities, he publicly supported the war effort. Kroger also invested in the creation of Provident Bank, selling his holdings in the bank in 1928, shortly before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. During a bank crisis in 1933, he converted $15 million of his savings into cash and displayed it at the bank to demonstrate the financial soundness of the bank, averting the crisis locally. As a man of great wealth, Kroger was also involved in many charitable ventures, including the opening of parks, donations to zoos, and medical research, especially for under-privileged children. When he was age 25, he married Mary Emily Jansen and the couple had three sons and four daughters. In 1899, his wife and their oldest son died of diphtheria. In 1928 in his Florida home, he married for a second time to thirty-six-year-old Mrs. Alice Farrington Flynn Maher, who had a daughter from a previous marriage named Alice. Upon retiring in 1928, he sold his interest in Kroger to the Lehman Brothers for $28 million, yet was a consultant on the executive board during the Great Depression. In 1932 his daughter Lucile died, and in 1933 his son, Bernard Jr., died from injuries in an auto accident. Before his 1938 death, he gave each of his remaining children millions of dollars to start their own lives. After years of declining health, Kroger died of a heart attack at his Cape Cod summer home and was buried in the family plot with his first wife and children. Even in the 21st century, his legacy remains with Kroger's grocery stores ranking as one of the largest retailers in the United States with a worth of $85 billion.