When Helman Blumberg was born in 1859 his father, Mordacai, was 24 and his mother, Sarah, was 24. He had two sons and six daughters with Ida Cora Carroll between 1877 and 1901. He lived in Kovno Gubernia, which is today in the northern half of modern Lithuania. (Although other reports said he was from Riga, Latvia.)

While in "Russia", Helman Blumberg bought a plow on which was stamped "Made in Chattanooga, Tennessee, U. S. A." This is where he felt he must go. A few months later, sometime during the late 1880s, Helman arrived in Chattanooga, and with his brother Rueben, he established a peddler’s supply business.

The Blumberg Brothers regularly traveled to New York to recruit new peddlers and ended up bringing approximately forty immigrants to the Chattanooga area. The Blumbergs paid the railroad fare from New York, supplied the peddlers with merchandise, and assisted them in establishing routes. By 1918, approximately 1,400 Jews lived in Chattanooga. Helman Blumberg rose to one or the leading wholesale merchants of this section. He retired in 1928.

Although in a strange country and forced to work long hours to get his little business on a good financial foundation, Helman was active from his first day in Chattanooga in religious and social circles. He was one of the founders of B'nai Zion synagogue. Helman was a generous contributor to the new B’nai Zion synagogue. His heart was a charitable one and gifts, mostly anonymous, to the poor were numerous. He was intensely interested in the welfare of the poor and at his death was treasurer of one of the outstanding Jewish charitable organizations, Mizrochi.

On March 12, 1931, at the age of 72, Helman was killed by a streetcar while crossing the street in Chattanooga, Tennessee while en route to the B'nai Zion synagogue on Carter street.