It’s important to share our lived family history in the context of our economic history. This gives our family a roadmap to what lays ahead. Generations are vulnerable to predictable political and economic disasters and pandemics. We can serve as “first-hand witnesses” to economic eras we have experienced. From my birth in 1943, I remember my childhood, school years and working years and what I was told by my parents, grandparents and great grandparents about their lived history back to the 1860s. This gave me a reference to how they lived through wars, epidemics, natural and economic disasters.
We are living now at a time that politically resembles the Civil War and again the Democrats are the “Rebel Confederates” and the Republicans are the “Union”. We have been experiencing our own Bolshevik Revolution. The Democrats are the Marxists and the Republicans are the Anti-Communist resistance. Democrats want government to grow and control the population with the empty promise of welfare. Republicans want government to shrink and allow the Free Market to grow to allow us citizens to control their own destinies. The US Constitution was designed to allow citizens to control the Free Market Economy in the US.
My working years from 1957 to 2017. This 60 year period included my school years working as a musician from 1957 to 1965. It included my early married years from 1965 to 1975 when I started my Corporate Career and continued to play music. In 1975, I retired from being a musician to continue my chosen career in Personnel.
Inflation was high in the 1960s and averaged 4 to 6%. Inflation peaked at 18% in the late 1970s. We were able to buy a home in 1966 for $16,000 in 1966 with a 4% mortgage in St. Charles Mo and sold it for $36,000. We bought our second home for $55,000 with a 6% mortgage in Salina Ks and sold it for $85,000. We bought our current home for $137,000 in 1983 with a 13% mortgage in Dunwoody Ga. We refinanced at 10% and then with a 7% 15-year mortgage. We paid if off in 2000. We maintained each house ourselves and updated what we could ourselves. We hired contractors as needed to upgrade our Dunwoody home for the past 40 years.
My wife was Dental Assistant when we married in 1964 and was a stay-at-home mom from 1965 to 1975. She finished Dental Hygiene School in 1986 and went to work as a Dental Hygienist and worked until 2017.
We began receiving Social Security at age 66 in 2009 and both continued to work until 2017 when we both retired at age 74.
I share this to encourage renters to become home owners and recommend that all continue to work past age 66.
We believe that despite inflation we were blessed to live at a time when the US economy was strong enough to thrive. Our Parents and Grand Parents lived through the Great Depression in the 1930s and World War II in the 1940s. Our great grandparents lived through the Civil War, the water-born diseases and bacteria related deaths from 1860 to the 1940s.
We believe that for our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to survive and prosper, we need our private sector economy to thrive to again to provide the jobs they need to move forward. We also need to stop and reverse the US National Debt from $36.5 trillion back to $5 trillion.
Growing up
My grandparents were wealthy. Grandpa Leahy was an Investor who owned large chunks of St. Louis based Chemical companies. We called him “Daddy Warbucks”. The Leahy family had 9 kids. My Mom was one of 12 kids. Her Dad was an MD who was homeschooled on the family farm and went to work at age 11 to earn money to pay a tutor to prepare him to enter Medical School at age 16. He graduated first in his class at age 19 and they made him Professor of Internal Medicine. He completed his surgical residency at age 21 and he continued to teach and opened his General Practice.
My childhood from my birth in St. Louis in 1943 included moves to Hallettsville Texas in 1945, Providence Rhode Island in 1947, Memphis Tennessee in 1948, Queens New York in 1950 and back to St. Louis in 1951. My dad owned 13 filling stations and served as the Night Superintendent of the St’ Louis Weapons Assembly Plant from 1941 to 1945.
His
brother John was he Director of Research and Development at Texas A&M in
College Station Texas and introduced him to Volkart Brothers, a Swiss cotton
Trading company. Their Board interviewed my Dad and wanted to hire him. My
Uncle John wanted my Dad to enter his program for a Masters in Cotton Research
Technology to prepare to join Volkart. That prompted us to sell our home in St.
Louis and move to Hallettsville Texas. My Dad graduated in 1947 and began to
establish Cotton Research Labs in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkart_Brothers
We had rented a small ranch in Hallettsville Texas that included a house and a barn. We bought a horse for my brother to ride to school. We had a cat to catch the mice in the barn. My 3rd birthday party was covered in the local newspaper. My brother and I would listen to hillbilly music on the 1000 watt radio. We sang along and harmonized. We visited the Alamo and toured through Texas on the weekends.
Because we moved annually for my Dad’s job, we rented. We visited family in St. Louis every year. From 1945 to 1950, my dad established 2 Labs and was promoted to VP R&D headquartered in New York. In 1952, my Dad was promoted to Managing Director at Volkart Brothers in Brussels Belgium. My Mom moved us back to St. Louis. They divorced. My Dad sent $500 per month for child support. My Mom took a job to run Accounting for a Jewelry Store Chain. We lived in the family apartment and I became the became the maintenance man at age 8.
We spend a lot of time with my Mom’s family and attended Sunday family dinners.
My Uncle Billy taught me to play the piano by ear at age 4. I found a bugle at my Mom’s family home and became the Boy Scout Troop’s Bugler. I joined the Grade School Band at age 10 and bought a Trumpet. I learned to play Guitar. I won a Music Scholarship to CBC Military HS and started a Rock Band at age 14. At age 18, I joined a Blues Band and worked 6 nights per week to pay my own college tuition at St. Louis U.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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