Financial Advice From the Dead

A couple of years ago, I had an occasion to spend two hours uninterrupted with my father-in-law. We were to drive from his house to the town where I live, a two hour drive. I can't remember the reason, but I decided to pass the time by asking him a question that had been plaguing me.

I was 40 years old at the time, my wife (his daughter) and I had six children, a mortgage, two cars that needed work, and a stack of bills. Sounds pretty average I suppose. Over the 18 years I had been married to his daughter, we had been helped by her parents many times with loans and gifts of money. I had decided that somehow I was going to do the same for my children. As I looked back on how I had managed our money, I realized that I hadn't listened to the financial advice I had been given when I was first married. Iwas finally mature enough to listen to advice at this point, so that was the nature of our two hour conversation.

Orval, my father-in-law, told me about six principles that he says he has lived by most of his life. He doesn't have a lot of money, in fact, he is known for living just fine on very little. I'll list the six principles here it a bit, but I want to get to the reason for my post first. I asked Orval when he started living these principles and he couldn't really say. When I asked him whom he learned them from, he said it was one of his ancestors: Charles Negus Carroll.

Charles Negus Carroll was a businessman known for fair dealing. He was part of the history of Park City, Utah and eventually moved south to Orderville Utah. Orval said to me that he had read these principles in Charles' journal, or in a family history book or story written by one of Charles' family.

So this is what struck me: As a young man Orval was touched by advice written in a journal of an ancestor. Charles Carroll died in 1902, and Orval wasn't born until about 30 years later. Somehow the combination of the man's know expertise with money, his reputation for integrity, and the fact that he was related struck Orval enough to take the advie to heart.

That experience was the beginning for me. I have not yet found the journal or story of Charles that lists these principles, but here they are:

1. Pay an honest tithe.
2. Don't buy something just because you can.
3. Pay cash whenever you can.
4. Buy used equipment (Orval translated this to cars for our day.) and keep it working.
5. Save a regular portion of your earnings.
6. Barter whenever possible.

Now I have to say that I suppose these principles may not have come from Charles Carroll, or may only some of them. My point is to show an example from my life where a connection of relation made a difference in advice taken. Somehow this was the beginning for me and my fasination with personal and family histories.

If any of the family of Charles Negus Carroll has insight to what Charles wrote, please let me know.