From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) More Musings on Peace - Timeline
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 10:30:59 -0500

Stone Ox wrote:

>When I wrote the earlier post, I wasn't sure where Olivia's death went.
Now
>I want to put it in 1929.  Where did Julius get the money to build the
>factory?   My gut feeling is that neither the carny business nor Bledsoe's
>drugstore would be sufficient (even factoring in bank loans).  If Julius
>sells the farms he inherited from Olivia, and uses the proceeds to build
the
>factory, he can make a lot more money if he sells them before the stock
>market crashes, and this makes for a much neater story

[snip]

The main problem with this is that Olivia didn't have any farms for Smart to
inherit. John Weer controlled the Weer estate; he and his wife were still
alive and Olivia had been dependent on John for most of her income before
her marriage. Julius did, however, inherit Olivia's house, which he sold to
the city at some point, to become the public library.

[snip]

>Another item to put on the time line is when the Weers lost their fortune.
>The stock market crashed in 1929, but I suspect that didn't affect farming
>immediately ... I would assume that farmers didn't start losing their farms
>until the 1930 harvest failed to raise enough cash to pay bank loans.

[snip]

Right, about the 1930 harvest being the beginning of the end for the Weer
wealth. I have touched on this before; see:

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0104.shtml

-Roy


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