POSTSCRIPT * 1973
Bill returned to Buffalo the night of the last entry in my Diary, and we stayed several days while he resumed his investigation of the Cyanamid Co. at Niagara Falls. Not many months later, when he had enough money, he bought stock in this company.
Bill continued the strategy of thoroughly looking into many angles of company management and future worth of stocks in which he was interested, either from the market’s standpoint or from analysis in Moody’s Manuals, seeking those stocks which were low priced in relation to their potential.
For several years he made these investigations for Frank Shaw, who often carried him for stock, but as Bill became able, he made investments for himself. Most of the stocks he recommended increased in value, and our financial status kept pace.
By 1927 we lived in a nice three-room apartment in a good residential district. Bill was feeling his oats so, when our neighbor moved out of the apartment next door, he rented it and had the wall between pulled down, thus giving us two bedrooms, two baths, two kitchens, and one tremendous living room--the point of it all. Bill always loved large living rooms. A grand piano, of course, was needed to fill the expanded space. (I recently came across the old bill--$1,600, for a Mason and Hamlin piano.) We had to take a three-year lease and promise to pay for the re-erection of the wall upon leaving.
Bill had dabbled a little in the stock market before our motorcycle trip. By selling eight Liberty Bonds he bought during World War I out of his army pay, he opened an account with Bayliss and Co. In 1922. Among the first stocks he bought were two shares of General Electric and three of International Nickel. But the stocks that really gained in value, and gained quickly, were among those he bought because of his investigations.
After the stock market crash in 1929 Bill lost a lot of money, for like everyone else at that time, he had bought on margin. However, he had made some very good business connections in Canada where the crash did not hit as hard as in the States. When Greenshields and Co. invited him to join their staff, we moved to Montreal. There we rented another expensive apartment, in a new building on Mt. Royal, overlooking the city, paying for the Brooklyn one as well.
On the day we first went to look at the apartment, I remember I lost my engagement ring. Pulling off my gloves as we walked on boards laid down across rubble to reach the apartment, I must unknowingly have pulled off my ring at the same time, and it dropped in the rubble.
Besides the fun, the trip was a partial success from my standpoint, too, because it slowed down Bill’s drinking temporarily, there being only three or four episodes that I remember. One was in Egypt, the rainy day “the boarder” spent with us in our tent. Bill kept him company, drink for drink, and then went to town for a bottle after the boarder left.
At another time we were camping off by ourselves, I don’t remember where, Bill provided himself with a supply of liquor for the weekend. As there was no one to see me “get potted,” I thought it was a splendid opportunity to hold a mirror up to him and to show him what a fool a person appears when drunk.
However, the moment was not auspicious after all, for Bill thought it a great game, and encouraged me to drink more and more, until I was so sick I couldn’t hold up my head. In the morning he had only a little hangover--mine was excruciating, and all for nothing.
Once, as we were about to cross the international border from Canada to the United States, we stopped at the entrance, because Bill said he wanted to get some cigarettes. This was nonsense, as cigarettes were more expensive in Canada--but liquor was cheaper. I could do nothing but wait and wait, hour after hour, parked on the bridge plaza, with no car keys or money, since Bill, who had been sober for sometime, had them with him. I had no idea where he had gone, but finally started out on foot to find him. It was getting dark and the area was full of saloons. I searched every one of them until, at last I found him, hardly able to navigate--and the money practically gone!