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The Schuyler Fortune V: Rose Down, Rose Home-1
Note to the Reader: This book is a bonus for Nifty readers, an addition to The Schuyler Fortune series. Written in the summer of 2016, prior to the election, this story explores the possibility of a woman becoming the first woman to be elected President of the US. At the time, the possibility seemed real... which inspired these chapters. Regardless of politics, this piece about Carol's daughter Barbara and her family is worth telling. Simon M.
The year Carol Schuyler turned sixty-five, a birthday celebration took place. Not for her, it turned out.
She decided to follow her friend Ruth's advice. Ruth, a classmate at Bryn Mawr, tall, glasses, ungainly, crooked nose and pretty brunette hair, was a cheerful, slightly cracked soul who seemed to have a new idea each day about something, all new to the world; most of these ideas made Carol squint her eyes and wait for an explanation that never came.
This time Ruth's advice was to have a birthday party for someone she didn't know...an indirect piece of advice, typical of Ruth.
Ruth and Carol had met again at a museum party celebrating Carol's daughter's Presidential election, were introduced, and oddly no spark of recognition on Ruth's face appeared initially. Then,
"Oh my stars! Carol Schuyler! Didn't I know you at Bryn Mawr? Say, did you vote for her too?" and without a pause, "Isn't it exciting that Barbara Darnell got elected?"
Carol had invited her for tea. Ruth accepted for the next week and during the conversation had recounted her shopping habits.
"I don't buy anything anymore for me, Carol. If I see something I really want, I pick it up right there in the store, hold it, and caress it for a while just like it was mine and then put it back on the shelf. I like to pretend the item is mine for a short minute or two.
"It saves money, you see."
Ruth paused for a breath of air.
Carol heard the story and now some weeks later her brain was still trying to link the Ruth's anecdote with something and of all things, the idea attached itself to this notion of a birthday celebration for an as yet unknown person or persons somewhere.
She asked her family for the option of planning any party she wished since she had missed a few birthday parties while comatose. Now very much awake and alive, she wondered what it would be like to surprise a child somewhere with a birthday party. Somewhere on the planet.
Michael just grinned. "Mom," he answered, "you won't know how it feels until you try it. The kid could be overwhelmed or something. You do know it has to be somebody who shares your birthday?"
"Yes, I know. I really want this!" she exclaimed. This conversation began about a year before her birthday. "We need to pick out a country, a city, a gift, a menu, and a kid with a willing family in the next year."
"Ruth is going to help me plan this. I discovered that she has been hired as a personal aide and planner to the Mayor and a quick check with Hizzoner to borrow her brought the unsolicited Mayoral opinion that she has real talents as a planner."
"Michael, did you know that the average annual income in some countries amounts to less than two hundred dollars per year? Your trust makes that and more every second of every day. We need to get started on that difference and give something back. My monthly social security check is coming and the SSA reliably informs me that I will get twenty-one hundred dollars and change. Divided by two hundred, we're looking at about ten annual incomes each month that I certainly don't need."
"So, Ruth and I are going to have a birthday party for ten families and will have a drawing for a country this week, a city in that selected country the next week and after that comes the hard work of selecting actual people."
Carol was a kind and generous person, focused on her outward service to others.
In church years ago, she had heard a sermon about something Jesus had said.
Come to me, all you who are troubled and weighted down with care, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and become like me, for I am gentle and without pride, and you will have rest for your souls. Matthew 11:28-29 BBE
Blossom had seemed to know that verse already, which wasn't anything new.
Blossom knew her Bible pretty well. She probably read it every day or something. Carol was a little surprised that a nurse who was supposed to be a part of the science community was this involved in something she couldn't measure or see but Blossom seemed to be the kind of person she admired, so she took that puzzle in stride for now.
Blossom had quoted a woman author from around the turn of the last century who believed the yoke' mentioned was lifelong service'. Carol liked that thought and felt it could be anyone's goal to reach. What a different place the world might be if everyone was of real service to others in some way, she thought.
She finished her tea with muffins and fruit and kept thinking.
Carol and her children spent time each year avoiding magazine reporters compiling the list of wealthy families. The total amount of their combined wealth was simply not known. She had seen the published list and knew who the top ten were, although she had not met them all.
Carol knew that her net wealth was in the vicinity of the top ten. In addition, the wealth in her art and gem collections whose value was whatever someone would pay for them would have increased that amount. In fact, she and Michael had once had a conversation about being unable to spend the interest on their capital. It accumulated too fast.
Little did anyone know, she marveled, that the idea was not only true, but much of the Schuyler trust wealth did not accrue interest. The trust appreciated much faster than inflation and certainly faster than the stock market.
Her father had explained to her as a teen that the fortune could grow several ways. Interest payments, stock dividends, stock price increases and appreciation of physical things like gems, gold and art objects.
He noted that art objects rarely dipped in value. There was always a supply of collectors, he had told her, and the supply of really great old paintings was limited since museums and collectors stored them and paid more and more each year to obtain them.
He thought real estate was similar in many ways, but one didn't pay property taxes on paintings. The increases in art value were far larger, he believed, than the simple interest that a savings account could bring.
She felt comfortable in the solid underpinning of her fortune inherited from her father, Frank Schuyler, well, of no fame. He was an unknown in an age of entrepreneurial giants.
Since waking from her coma, Carol had a slight tendency to an affective disorder. That is, she sometimes underwent episodes when her mind raced from subject to subject and dreamed about wonderful, cheerful outcomes for herself and others. About the only symptom of this manic part she didn't have was to spend money she didn't have. She had more money to spend than was possible to spend.
She had opted not to take medication for this. Carol liked the highs and tolerated the lows ok and didn't want to complicate things.
She liked to exercise in her rose garden, ate a balanced diet, was a Yoga fan although this last pastime tended to involve stretching and exercise than a full-scale exploration of Eastern religion. Having a Swami and believing in karma and all that was way out of her comfort zone.
She thought reincarnation kind of strange and without much evidence excepting the one cat she had had as a very young child who reminded her of W. C. Fields.
The country picked at random turned out to be Zimbabwe. After supervising the drawing in the Mayor's office, Ruth said she could locate it with Google Maps and a few seconds later, she found it south of Zambia, west of Mozambique, east of Botswana and north of South Africa. She informed Carol of these facts by telephone, as she read them, bunching up her forehead and squinting at the laptop.
"Oh, my!" Ruth exclaimed. "Hippos and things. I wonder if we'll need a visa?"
"Many countries require them," said Carol. "For some nations it is a significant source of cash revenue to help manage tourism and for development. We'll pick a city next week."
Bulawayo was randomly chosen the next week as the location for the birthday party celebration. Passports were checked, visa applications sent off and some planning begun. Carol invited Blossom to sit in with Ruth for the planning. From the beginning, Blossom had doubts about a birthday party for kids in a foreign country.
"I don't know about exporting our customs to some other country." she said. "Could be they might like something else better."
That very evening, Blossom dreamed about the Sears catalog. In her dream she tried to open it, meaning to order something of vast importance. It faded away and she awoke quietly sobbing. She sat up, suddenly fully awake. For she, Blossom Taneesha Jones RN didn't ever cry over anything. She got up, wrote down the dream and prayed about it, feeling as if she had just stepped into someone else's life.
Sitting at the kitchen table at eleven p.m. with a cup of hot Meyer Lemon herbal tea, she contemplated one thing and another trying to recreate the circumstances around the day and the dream.
She walked into the living room, started to arrange the coffee table a little and picked up a catalog to straighten it on top a pile of magazines...
A catalog. That catalog had been there for a few weeks, unread for the most part. It was an ADRA catalog that had listed various charitable projects in countries around the world in which one could participate.
She remembered one project where those who wished could buy a goat for a Cameroon mother to raise, providing milk for her family, requiring one of the goat kids, if any were born, to be donated to another unrelated person in need. Another had offered the donor a modern version of a treadle sewing machine to give a mother to start a sewing business at home to make money for her family.
The next day she found Carol and gave her the ADRA catalog, including its items for Zimbabwe. She mentioned her dream and her reaction. Carol was fascinated and decided to give her social security check plus some to various projects. The birthday party plans were put on hold.
By that afternoon she had read more of the catalog, had contacted the director of ADRA and invited her to the Museum for a consultation.
On the following Tuesday, Blossom and Carol and Ruth met with the ADRA director, Donna Stafford, in Carol's suite on the fourth floor. Mrs. Stafford declined tea and coffee, accepted juice gratefully and asked how she could be of service.
Blossom smiled at Mrs. Stafford and told her that the Schuyler trust was considering a donation to ADRA and introduced her to Carol Schuyler and Ruth, her college friend from the Mayor's office. Mrs. Stafford brightened and offered to explain ADRA's mission and goals.
Blossom told her that she was familiar with ADRA, but that Carol and Ruth could use some catching up. After a short explanation, the director paused and asked if they had any questions for her.
Both Carol and Ruth were impressed, especially with the emphasis on donating to individual women with families. Carol told Mrs. Stafford that she had decided to donate a substantial amount of money to ADRA. She had some restrictions on her gift.
She asked the director to limit this gift to the continent of Africa and to the sub-Saharan regions of the continent with an emphasis on Zimbabwe, if possible.
She was hoping to attend an ADRA event in Bulawayo in one year on March 16, her birthday. Carol indicated that she would fund her own travel and expenses.
The director wondered about the restrictions for about two seconds, and then readily agreed.
"The Schuyler trust will send you a donation letter of intent within the next three days. Will the general address of the ADRA offices be sufficient?" Receiving an affirmative answer, the women exchanged handshakes and the meeting was over. Carol found Michael and had a talk with him about money.
"Michael," she began, "I would like to make a large donation to charity from the trust. Since you are the beneficiary now I thought it best if I get your approval."
"Mom," he said, "thank you, and you know you can give whatever to whomever whenever, but thanks for letting me know. Standard conditions about capital reverting to the trust at project termination and interest income plus dividends to the charity only?"
"Yes."
"Good. I'll have the trust attorneys get a draft letter of intent ready this afternoon. They must have the boilerplate filed away on some computer there in Philadelphia."
"Thank you, Michael." Carol left the pertinent details of the amount and the ADRA address with him, gave him a hug and went off to inspect the orchids.
Mrs. Donna Stafford's office received a great deal of mail and telephone calls on a daily basis from donors and contacts throughout the world. Her secretaries had been on the lookout for a letter from the Schuyler trust since her appointment at the Museum.
It arrived, marked `personal to the attention of the director', precisely three days after the appointment. The mailroom guy and the secretaries decided that Mrs. Stafford should open the letter, so it was hand-carried to the director.
Mrs. Stafford had prayed about this letter. She thought it might be generous.
She was not prepared for the letter's contents and was obligated to read it several times before calling her Board for a conference call.
The secretaries saw a look on her face they never forgot.
The letter of intent to donate outlined the Schuyler trust's decision to give one billion dollars over the next three months to a new equity fund in New York City to function as a source of income to ADRA and as seed money open to other donor's contributions.
Dividends, interest and growth of this fund were donated to ADRA catalog projects in sub-Saharan Africa leaving the original principal untouched.
The principal could be recalled if ADRA or its catalog went out of existence. The principal could not be transferred to anyone but the Schuyler trust. The fund was set up as a charitable trust, thus avoiding some taxes.
The trust would not choose catalog projects, except other projects that ADRA might consider that raised the standard of living in that region. Any such projects would be reviewed by the trust and needed approval by the trust beneficiary, Michael Schuyler, her designate or successor and the fund manager. The entire project was to be reviewed every five years by the Schuyler trust's primary beneficiary at the time. The entire principle could be recalled every five years if the fund was dissolved.
At an estimated net growth and income of ten per cent per year over time, an estimated one hundred million dollars annually or more could be available for ADRA projects. The first check to ADRA for ten million dollars would arrive in two weeks. The trust amount would be sent in two installments directly to the director of the fund in New York City. Future payments to ADRA would come from the Blossom Jones Fund for Africa, the new fund name.
The managing director of the new fund was to be Mr. Marcus Schuyler-Jones of New York City. The liaison officer between the fund and ADRA was to be his brother, Mr. John Jones of Brooklyn, New York.
Carol had spoken with Michael quietly one day and they had arranged this surprise for Blossom and her sons. The needed applications and licenses for a separate brokerage firm to be owned by `The Blossom Jones Fund for Africa' were submitted and approved.
Blossom told Michael and Carol that she was happy to have her name on the project. Marcus had been looking for a path upward and wasn't impressed with the goals of the major brokerages houses on Wall Street.
When presented with the chance to manage this fund with its goal, increased salary, and benefits included, he accepted the new task with pleasure. His salary tripled, and his benefits were the same as the other employees of the fund.
A letter was quickly forthcoming from ADRA accepting the terms of the donation and from Donna Stafford and her Board; a grateful `thank you' letter was received.