An elderly widow with no children had faithfully worked for her local soup kitchen for forty years. One day, she was given the sad news that the kitchen was closing down due to lack of funding.
She didn’t earn a good income by any means, but it was enough to pay for her small trailer park home in Texas to put food on the table, which was often supplemented by left over soup.
She wondered what she would do in her twilight years, especially to keep paying rent.
She immediately thought of her teenage years when she would help her dad, a silversmith, making jewellery from raw gold and silver.
She dug around and found her dad’s smelter, along with some of his tools. Well over half a century old, she pulled them out and dusted them off.
Knowing she would need at least 1 ounce of gold and 10 ounces of silver, she called up an old friend who worked at the local pawn shop and asked how much she would need to get the raw metal.
$1800.
She didn’t have that kind of money, but knew she could make at least 10 great pieces of jewellery with the gold and silver, and sell them at $300 each, which would give her 2 months income.
She decided to go to her local bank to ask for the $1800 as a loan.
The banker pulled out the loan application.
“What are you going to do with the money?” he asked the widow, as he pulled out the application form.
“Buy some gold and silver, make jewellery, and sell it,” was the response.
“What do you have for collateral?”
“What do you mean?” replied the old lady.
“Well, that’s something of value that would cover the cost of the loan in case you can’t pay us back. Do you have any vehicles?”
“Yes. My late husband’s old 1949 Chevy pickup,” replied the lady.
The banker shook his head, “how about a home?”
“Well, I rent where I live, and always have,” she responded, starting to get nervous.
“What about furniture?”
“Well, I have an old TV, my stove, some couches, tables,” she stuttered, trying to think what would satisfy the banker’s needs, “oh! And I have some fairly valuable jewellery-making tools.”
Finally, the banker decided to make the $1800 loan.
The widow was delighted, and immediately went to the pawn shop where her friend worked, and bought the gold and silver. She got to work immediately, put her heart and soul into the designs, and within two weeks had handcrafted ten stunning pieces of jewellery.
She went to the local flea market every weekend, and within a month had sold all the pieces. She now had enough money to pay rent, buy more gold and silver, pay the banker back, and keep some extra as savings.
Off she went to see the banker.
She pulled out a roll of bills, “I’m here to pay,” she said.
She then handed the banker the $1800 plus interest to pay her loan off.
“What are you going to do with the rest of that money?” the banker asked with hungry eyes.
“Keep it in my safe”, replied the little old lady, proudly.
“Why don’t you deposit it in our bank?” the banker asked.
“Why would I do that?” replied the elderly woman.
“You put the money in our bank and we take care of it for you. Whenever you want to use it, you can withdraw it.”
The sweet old lady leaned across the desk and motioned for him to lean forward…
…he did.
She asked the banker…
“What do you have for collateral?”
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Jewellery Image by Crepessuzette from Pixabay
Feature Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
Elderly lady Image by Rohit Bhusan from Pixabay
