Father's Troubles: a novel

FATHER'S TROUBLES - CARTER TAYLOR SEATON

LAWRENCE BURGHER suffers deprivation and ridicule as a child, marking him for life. Determined to make the world respect him, he sees wealth and power as the means to that end. Under the tutelage of EDWARD KEELEY, his mentor and future business partner, Lawrence parlays inherited land in Shapely, West Virginia into a burgeoning career in real estate and banking.

In 1918, Lawrence moves his wife ANNA and family to Huntington, West Virginia to become Vice-President of Keeley's bank there. As his real estate career escalates and his family grows, so does his ambition. Burgher borrows money to take advantage of the emerging land boom. Early success leads to arrogance and arrogance to poor decisions. By 1924, feeling the pinch of debt that he cannot repay, Lawrence resorts to making secret new loans to himself to pay the old ones. Soon caught in a financial trap of his own making, Burgher resorts to kiting checks, falsifying loans and forgery to cover the truth of his situation.

During a routine bank examination, the Banking Commissioner discovers the shaky financial condition of the bank and evidence of Burgher's irregular activities. Given fair warning, Burgher changes nothing. The bank is closed for lack of reserve funds, exposing Burgher's activities. He is indicted for embezzlement and forced into bankruptcy. Held together by Anna's strength, the family bears the humiliation of a public trial, where Burgher is convicted and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary at Moundsville where he suffers over-crowding, rampant tuberculosis and confinement in a cell smaller than the closets in his home.

When the Great Depression hits, the family is already deep in poverty. Anna is diagnosed with a brain tumor, goes to Baltimore for surgery, and spends her final year in a hospital, blind and dying. The oldest daughter, Eileen, takes over raising her siblings on her meager teacher's pay. Moving again and again into successively smaller homes, the de factoorphans still maintain their dignity in the face of public gossip and pity.

In 1932, Anna Burgher dies. Three months later, Lawrence Burgher dies suddenly in the penitentiary. Thoroughly shaken, it becomes the children's unspoken rule never to discuss their father's troubles. "Father's troubles" becomes a code word which they understand, but which is translated for the next generation into a romantic story of wealth lost during the Depression. Until Maggie is nearly forty, she never knows the real story. Over a twenty-year period she digs into the past and gains a new respect for her mother. She realizes the strength of the Burgher women is deeply embedded in her and is the finest legacy she could have received from them.