INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS

I PUT THE MONEY ON THE TABLE in the form of a deposit on the apartment and we moved out of mom's garage. That was the big end to my dream of setting aside money for my children to start life on... something I never had and was never thought of for having from anyone. Short of a SAVINGS BOND set up for me by my maternal grandmom, nothing had ever been prearranged... that I know of. Sure, there was life insurance to cover dependents on mom's job back when we were younger, but children were never intended to benefit from that... it was to put us into the ground "in the event." And there was the traditional WHOLE LIFE POLICY which would cover the cost of burial at the penny up premiums charged by LIFE INSURANCE COMPANIES who would pay for burial or refunds of what was paid in prenium amounts "if death did not occur." I had a plan to move us ahead in spite of my children's father creating a need to escape him in our younger days. I was 18 when I left and by 19 I was divorced. The children and I were still alive and there was another woman in my place and already dodging fisty punches from him... her and her baby girl. At any rate, the apartment I signed onto for us was actually a three bedroom townhouse apartment just across the state line. It was in easy reach to mom's house, grandma's house, my military unit and my job. I opted for it in the ruxh to recover from having lost at buying my first home... a three bedroom cottage house on the street some ten blocks or so north of my grandmother's house. I would have been in close vicinity to all of our relatives. Instead, I signed onto a townhouse being cleared of its prior tenant by the Realtor/Owner and his son. I cashed in two investment accounts set up by me for my son and daughter's future. I cashed them in and was so agonized for having to do it using money intended for them that I cried before and after doing so... cried for the entire weekend. I figured we would never get a home of our own. I was never managing to save anything. I had to cash the accounts in due to a rush from my stepfather who insisted on our "getting out" of mom's house after my return from military basic training. I had come out, settled the arrangement with mom as having been my signed temporary guardian for the time of which I was gone. After having settled with her, I located a house and put a downpayment on it... without spending into our investment monies. WADELL&REED INVESTMENT AGENCY held three accounts, one for each of my children and one for myself as a retirement fund. It was the second attempt at making the attempt to not be dependent in my latter years. The first, set up with EQUITABLE ASSURANCE on my first job with the State of Illinois at the early age of 21 years, became lost in a tangle of credentials theft while I was away at military training. I had placed my everything into a storage shed at SPACE PLACE STORAGE and the women operating the site did away with my everything stored. I cashed in the accounts held for my children on the advice of the agent... District Manager in the Chicago area... who came to my mother's home, sat on her sofa beside me and drew the paperwork to close two and hold onto the one. I could "...restart the children's accounts any time... they had longer options than did I." I signed the paperwork and within a week had the money for the townhouse. I lost the deposit money put down on the little cottage house, but were not in the streets as we would have been. The closing on the sale of the small house was schedule for that weekend... three or four days after being pushed out of mom's house by her husband. I was 27, my children were 10 and 12. My own husband was wayward when I enlisted into the military, and was wayward by exact definition when I returned... when I signed onto a place to live and before and after losing the first home purchase ever attempted. He hadn't been around since before losing the apartment signed for in his and my name, located further out in the suburbs. He ahd quit his job one day, decided he wasn't going to work for a living and left. It was the last I had seen of him except that he showed up to help move heavy items from the apartment out of the moving truck I rented, into the second of two storage sheds I put a deposit on. He had signed for the latter of the two in our rush to close out the business of leasing the storage unit before close of day. He was the one who showed his face as they locked the office doors. They assumed he was the paying party on the contract. It was me. It was before I left for military training. It was the last I saw of him. They blocked me from paying on "his" storage shed. They blocked me from collecting my possessions. The children and I moved the items of the first storage shed into our townhouse apartment. I was consoled in that I still had my retirement account with WADDELL&REED set by their District Manager.

SO MUCH LOSS goes into the act of setting money aside for one's future and the sanctity of the family they provide for. We lose on the value of family vactions and activities which could have been purchased with the money set aside each month... each payperiod... for deferred life. We lose each time an investment broker or his agent tips off the company books and the money prayerfully set aside in long or short term investment accounts. Those agents are humans capable of losing their minds to drugs... cocaine and marijuana. They tear through investment accounts barely dry of ink on paper befor they dash out of the bak's door, leap into their car never to be seen again. BANK AMERICA INVESTMENTS... TUCSON, ARIZONA... Sr Rep Patricia Chastain. Some old man and I took turns trusting out money to her one day. As I stood to leave her office she gestured for the old caucasian man who barely looked as if he could stand to go back into her office to finalize his paperwork which sat on the desk as she did my own. Before he could sit in the chair good, she was bounding out of the room with her briefcase and purse in hand... the old guy looking behind her with his mouth agape. Nearly half an hour later I stood to inquire of the bank teller's as to whether she had left the documents I was to return to her office for. They informed me that she would not be returning, She was on her way to Bakerfield, California. She was no longer an employee of the bank. I felt my own jaw drop. The skreetching of tires, banging of bumpers and peeling of tire rubber was her leaving the lot. There should be some legal rule which assures the return on invested funds. So much for investments, especially that intended as retirement money. If the set aside through social security will not be reassured to those to whom it was taken, then what? I never did recoup the account held in WADDELL&REED by Darwin Yarborough.

I was informed later that she had not phoned the bank with account details of the invested monies from my account (not that of the old man)... but that I could wait until she did call, perhaps later next week. The only person who could access funds from either account was Ms Chastain. The senior teller mentioned that I could write a check on the account to throw off the knowledge of a.ny actual balance in the account. It was the only option other than waiting for her to make a move. I wrote a check on my account. It was the only way I rescued the excess of $89,000 of life insurance policy from the death of my husband deposited that day. I was again informed, much later, that they had not heard from Ms. Chastain three or four weeks later. I have made investment ventures since then but remain wary of the human element involved. I have been told that my most recent husband and his family left money to me... told that by their banker, the banks management. I have yeat to actually acquire it due to royal logic. It's all human... right?

Invest for your future and

remember to

TRUST IN GOD.