FLORIDA MEMORIES FROM A FLORIDA NATIVE BY TOM ROUTZONG - My Family Banking
Banking, what’s that? I never thought about how my parents and other family members handled their money until I became an adult.
My parents never had a bank account. They paid cash for everything and any jobs they had paid them cash.
I remember my mother showing me where she kept her money in case something happened to her. She had a drawer in an antique chest where she kept all her sewing patterns. There was one pattern that had a safety pen in the top and that was her bank.
Banking, what’s that? I never thought about how my parents and other family members handled their money until I became an adult.
My parents never had a bank account. They paid cash for everything and any jobs they had paid them cash.
I remember my mother showing me where she kept her money in case something happened to her. She had a drawer in an antique chest where she kept all her sewing patterns. There was one pattern that had a safety pen in the top and that was her bank.
My Aunt Lula who was a nurse during the war and then one at the hospital in Rockledge, showed me a stack of US Savings Bonds that she wanted me to have later on. Her hiding place was in the kitchen oven. She had them in a paper envelope.
My guess is she didn’t use the oven that much and when she did, she remembered to remove them.
She also kept her cash hidden somewhere else because whenever she bought something she counted out the cash. She even bought a cabin in the mountains and a new Studebaker car with cash money.
She gave me a man’s diamond ring that belonged to someone who was in the service with her. He wanted to borrow some money and gave her the ring to hold until he paid her back. She never saw him again so figured he had been killed.
After getting out of the service she became the administrator of the Rockledge Hospital which meant she hired the nurses, cooks and cleaning staff.
The hospital owned a house behind the main building which they called the Nurses Home. It was surrounded by orange groves. Aunt Lula and several other nurses lived there and they could be at the hospital in minutes if needed.
Aunt Lula had a dog named Butch and she would keep a book in the front door so he could come and go when he wanted to. One morning she got up and walked into the living room and there was a skunk walking around the room. She very quietly closed all the doors to the other rooms. She stood very still and waited for “Mr. Skunk” to go back out the front door. That was the last time a book was left in the door for Butch to come and go as he pleased.
My guess is she didn’t use the oven that much and when she did, she remembered to remove them.
She also kept her cash hidden somewhere else because whenever she bought something she counted out the cash. She even bought a cabin in the mountains and a new Studebaker car with cash money.
She gave me a man’s diamond ring that belonged to someone who was in the service with her. He wanted to borrow some money and gave her the ring to hold until he paid her back. She never saw him again so figured he had been killed.
After getting out of the service she became the administrator of the Rockledge Hospital which meant she hired the nurses, cooks and cleaning staff.
The hospital owned a house behind the main building which they called the Nurses Home. It was surrounded by orange groves. Aunt Lula and several other nurses lived there and they could be at the hospital in minutes if needed.
Aunt Lula had a dog named Butch and she would keep a book in the front door so he could come and go when he wanted to. One morning she got up and walked into the living room and there was a skunk walking around the room. She very quietly closed all the doors to the other rooms. She stood very still and waited for “Mr. Skunk” to go back out the front door. That was the last time a book was left in the door for Butch to come and go as he pleased.
My Aunt Rachel was a widow and a hoarder. She also had over 30 cats when she died.
I handled her estate and going through everything in her house was a challenge. The thirty some cats and with her being a smoker you can imagine what the house smelled like.
It took several months to empty out the house and go through the family things. I found large sums of money hidden all over the house.
She had a mink stole and I happened to look inside one of the pockets and found a $500 bill.
There was a huge collection of music tapes all in the plastic trays and after throwing out hundreds of them I found in the bottom of the last tray several hundred dollars folded under the tapes.
We knew by then that a lot of cash had been unknowingly put in the four large garbage dumpsters.
We also found ten or twelve plastic bags filled with small pieces of left-over bars of soap!
That was an experience I hope to never go through again.
FLORIDA MEMORIES FROM A FLORIDA NATIVE BY TOM ROUTZONG
Tom Routzong shares memories of old Florida
Copyright 2019 Tom Routzong
Contact Tom at:
Sunny Harbor Publishing
321-252-9874
[email protected]
I handled her estate and going through everything in her house was a challenge. The thirty some cats and with her being a smoker you can imagine what the house smelled like.
It took several months to empty out the house and go through the family things. I found large sums of money hidden all over the house.
She had a mink stole and I happened to look inside one of the pockets and found a $500 bill.
There was a huge collection of music tapes all in the plastic trays and after throwing out hundreds of them I found in the bottom of the last tray several hundred dollars folded under the tapes.
We knew by then that a lot of cash had been unknowingly put in the four large garbage dumpsters.
We also found ten or twelve plastic bags filled with small pieces of left-over bars of soap!
That was an experience I hope to never go through again.
FLORIDA MEMORIES FROM A FLORIDA NATIVE BY TOM ROUTZONG
Tom Routzong shares memories of old Florida
Copyright 2019 Tom Routzong
Contact Tom at:
Sunny Harbor Publishing
321-252-9874
[email protected]