In 1996, I was thirty-nine and worked as a lending officer at First Farmers Bank. Walter Prescott had approached my desk hoping to secure sixty-two thousand dollars to open a welding shop. Four banks had already rejected him. Although I had to refuse his application too, I believed in his determination. That evening, I discussed the situation with my husband, Frank. He agreed to let us put our home up as collateral. If Walter failed, we could lose everything.
When the loan closed, Walter gave me the ownership agreement. He couldn’t repay me for the risk immediately, so he promised me a share of whatever the business became. He repaid the loan in full by 2003, seven years early. I could have claimed my thirty-five percent, but I never did. I wasn’t interested in owning someone else’s dream. Walter later hired Marcus when my son was unemployed, and I always believed he remembered what our family had done for him. I had never expected that old agreement to become necessary.
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