At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the richest woman in the world was al so the most miserable. Hetty Green made her money by buying cheap and selling expensive on Wall Street, but she never spent a cent on herself.
She dressed and lived like a beggar. At the age of30, she inherited a million dollars which she had turned into 100 million by the time she was fifty.
She married Edward Green when she was 33, but made him sign a pre-nuptial agreement that he would never claim any of her money. She raised her 2 children in deplorable conditions, moving from one low-class hotel to another so as not to pay property taxes. To save on clothes and soap, she used the same black dress every day and only washed the part that got dirty: the hem.
When her son Ned hurt his knee, she refused to pay for medical services and two years later they had to amputate his leg.
Since she was too avaricious to pay rent for an office, she used the bank where she had her money deposited as her headquarters. If a bank official refused to lend her his desk, she threatened to withdraw her fortune from the bank.
When she got depressed, she would go into the bank vault and sit in the middle of the floor, surrounded by her money. When she died, her son Ned spent al1 her money extravagantly on parties, jewels, yachts and even a diamond-decorated urinal.
1 comment:
That's so sad. SO, I've decided I'll never be an old, rich and miser lady
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