Their business empire lasted over a century by overcoming logistical difficulties, physically challenging obstacles, and political changes.
They developed an extensive trading, transport and ranching network, which stretched from Botswana to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Harry Susman worked as a peddler for a few years in Cape Town, South Africa, before crossing the Zambezi (at Kazungula) with Elia to buy cattle from King Lewanika of Barotseland in 1901.
[3] The development of the Northern Rhodesian copperbelt began to take off, with the reorganization of the Bwana Mkubwa mine near Ndola in 1922.
The Susman brothers eventually sold the claims for the Nkana prospect to William Lee, but retained the trading rights on the concessions.
After complex negotiation with the government in 1927, the ranch was enlarged by 14,000 acres (57 km2), in two blocks taken from the Soil people reserve.
Next to their Leopards Hill Ranch, they grew tobacco on the Kabulonga farm, which was much closer to the rail line.
The Susmans' first major move onto the copperbelt was when they took over Bwana Mkubwa hotel and Ndola Butchery and Bakery, in September 1928.
The brothers formed partnership with a friend from Southern Rhodesia, who also brought his own partners to the business.
The Susman brothers also took a share in another business run by the Kollerbergs, the Copperfields Cold Storage Limited.
[3] Gersh began working in Livingstone at their Pioneer Butchery & Bakery and set up his own store in the town in 1927.
This time in conjection with their nephews, Maurice and Harry Gersh, they set up in 1931 a company called Economy Stores Limited.
Maurice Gersh played a leading role in negotiations with the Northern Rhodesian government, with the set-up on a new town near Nkana, called Kitwe.
It was as the recovery from the Depression in Northern Rhodesia and South Africa was nearing its completion that the Susman brothers made their most momentous new investment.
Their trading business began during the scramble for Africa and the heyday of Imperialism, coming through the colonial period to the ill-fated federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
A few months before the end of the Second World War, Harry Susman left Livingstone and settled on a farm, Umritsor, near Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia.
[5] Until his own death in January 1958, there was never any doubt that Elie Susman was, in spite of his absence in South Africa for most of the year, the senior partner and dominant personality in the business.