Both of my parents were depression children. My mother’s father was a physician. During the day, he saw patients and at night, he raised a family, all the while digging out from under two stock market crashes. He lived through 132 of the worst 200 days in stock market history and died of a heart attack at 47. His widow kept going, lived through 14 more of the worst 200 days in stock market history and as a single parent during WWII, raised three children. There was no one to calm the family’s financial worries and lead them to financial peace. The middle child grew up and became my mother. All this I learned when I was old enough to grasp what a mutual fund was and that the Putnam Fund shares mother held in her hands once belonged to the grandfather I never knew. I was 13 and knew I wanted to work in a helping profession.

Years later, as a 26-year-old stockbroker, I visited my paternal grandmother. She turned pages in a well-worn investments journal and shared with me how a Mr. Goodman, with Peabody & Co., rode the train from New York to Lee, MA, every year until his death to review her investments and hear all that was important to her. He had passed away by the time I came along, and at 89, grandmother was too busy serving on the Berkshire Home for Aged Women to keep up with reading annual reports and thinking about the companies in her portfolio. Needing someone with “brighter eyes,” (her words, not mine) she signed on and continued imparting wisdom for twenty more years, dying at 103. Clients who look forward to house calls have my grandmother to thank for teaching me this cordial practice. For three decades, client after client confirms my calling to this profession; two were mentor-octogenarians; they loved asking questions like, “Is your firm contributing to making a better world and choosing purpose over profit?”