Your True Tales
November 2004 – Page 19

The Mutual Funds
by Wendy Wagner

This happened to my mother and my grandmother in Norfolk, Virginia back in the early 1970s. My mother was only 14, and her father, who was in the Navy, passed away suddenly. It was very hard on her and my grandmother, and there were a lot of things left to do that my grandmother had never done before, and didn't completely understand. One of these things was the mutual funds that she and my grandfather had, and the man who was in charge of taking care of them didn't really try to help her. My grandmother couldn't understand why she wasn't making any money from them.

Around this time, the noises started. My mother would hear floorboards creaking, as if someone was walking on them, and at times heard water running in the bathroom when there was no one in there. One particular morning, her grandmother had come to stay with her and her mother. My mother woke up early, before dawn, and heard the water running in the bathroom. She assumed it was her grandmother and went back to sleep. Later, she was telling her grandmother that she heard her in the bathroom that morning, and her grandmother was surprised. It was not her in the bathroom, nor was it her mother.

My mother was convinced right then that it was her father.

Not too long after that, my grandfather's best friend from the Navy came by unexpectedly and told my grandmother that something was telling him to come by and check on her and my mother to see if everything was okay. She started to tell him about the problems she was having with the mutual funds and he asked to see all the papers. After he looked them over, he discovered that this man was stealing money from her, shuffling the funds back and forth to make a profit.

My grandmother got an attorney, and that man ended up having to sell his airplane and his house to repay my grandmother, although she still never recovered all the money. But once this was discovered, my mother and grandmother never heard from my grandfather again. My mother is sure that he was trying to warn them about this man and the money he was stealing from them.

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