Our family had no traditional inheritable wealth. But we had a treasure chest of unmeasurable wealth in family stories. They often carried lessons.
Among my favorites is the story of Uncle Walton and the trombone.
Uncle Walton was the youngest of my father’s four brothers, born in 1901. My father, nicknamed Jack for a family border collie stock dog who died the week of his birth in 1897, was second youngest. Robert, Quin and Harry, Jr were the others.
Their father, Harry McClanahan Word, born in 1865, was a farmer and livestock trader in Montgomery County, Virginia, until 1919 when he sold his 250-acre farm atop Christiansburg Mountain to Colonel (honorary) Sidney Sheltman for $50 an acre, half cash, half for Sheltman’s promissory note. Sheltman died of influenza in 1922, his promissory note unpaid but thankfully a lien on the farm.
My grandfather had invested most of the cash-half of his farm sale proceeds to found Christiansburg Seed & Fertilizer Company. Sadly, it never made money, felled by the agricultural depression in Appalachia that began in 1920 and lasted into World War Two. Grandfather Harry died in 1942, still burdened by debts of the seed and fertilizer business on which my father was guarantor.
The story of Uncle Walton and the trombone is as follows.
Walton, as the baby, was his parents’ favorite and spoiled, according to my father. As a pre-teen, he was given a pony. This prompted a desire for a new saddle, which he got for a Christmas present. Anxious to show off his new saddle, he rode the pony up Christiansburg’s Main Street on Christmas morning.
On a corner, he encountered a lad about his age carrying a trombone, his Christmas present. Instantly, Walton was enchanted by the trombone—he must have it.
“What will you take for that trombone,” Walton asked the lad.
“It’s not for sale, — but I’ll trade you even for your saddle.”
On impulse, Walton jumped off his pony and un-girthed the saddle. In a minute he was riding bareback and attempting to blow sound from the trombone. He finally produced a loud note, frightening the pony which bolted, causing Walton to drop the trombone. The pony stepped on the trombone, crushing it and rendering it worthless.
In a quarter hour, Walton rode back into his father’s stable yard, bareback, carrying the bent trombone, and crying.
“What happened, son? “Harry asked. Walton explained his trade and the accident following it.
“Son, that’s all right. Throughout your life, you will have to make trades. Remember, to survive you have to make a few more good ones than bad ones.”
My father always speculated his father was thinking of his bad trade of his mountain-top farm to Sidney Sheltman as he told the story of Walton’s saddle-for-trombone trade.