What Money Can't Buy

I was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1834 to a Quaker family. At age thirty, I inherited $7.5 million in liquid assets, at age thirty-three, I married Edward Henry Green, a member of a wealthy Vermont family. I insisted he renounce all rights to my money before our wedding on July 11, 1867.

At first we lived in Edward’s home in Manhattan, but later moved to London were took up residence in the Langham Hotel. My two children, Edward Henry Rowland Green and daughter, Hetty Sylvia Ann Howland Green, who we called Annie, were born there.

While Edward pursued investments as a sort of "gentleman banker," I began parlaying my inheritances into expanding my own fortune—an investment strategy that I maintained throughout my life: conservative investments, substantial cash reserves to back up any movement, and an exceedingly cool head amidst turmoil. While in London, I focused primarily on London, most of “greenbacks,” the notes printed by the U.S. government immediately after the Civil War. When more timid investors were wary of notes put forth by the still-recovering government, I bought at full bore, and made another 1.25 million from my bond investments in one year alone.

After London, we moved to my husband’s home town of Bellows Falls, Vermont.

Throughout my life, I have felt an overwhelming melancholy, and no amount of money relives me of my doldrums. Perhaps despondency is its own type of gift, as I felt no different when in 1885 the financial house of John J. Cisco & Sons, collapsed. My husband, not I, had invested most of his money with them, but we kept our funds separate, so I was not particularly impacted. He lived his life and I lived mine, and our children somehow lived theirs; I had no particular interest in anyone else.

My husband moved back to Manhattan, and my children went off to school. I remained in Vermont, as it seemed as good a place as any, and I could live the way my misery dictated.

If sadness was my calling, then frugality was my religion. I never turned on the heat nor used hot water in my Vermont home. I had two identical garments, a black dress, one to wear and one to wash. Cooking seemed like a waste of time, and once a week I would take the carriage to town and buy the day old pies at the baker for a dime each. I did make one pot of oatmeal on Sunday, which I ate for breakfast for the week, from the pot.

I tried to keep my home orderly, so when I misplaced a two-cent stamp, the search for it almost drove me to madness.

I don’t want you to think my frugal lifestyle was a result of my family living elsewhere. I was always that way. For example, when my son Edward broke his leg as a child, I decided to treat him at home, rather than going to the hospital. There is no way of knowing if the ensuing limp would have remained had he seen a physician. All I can say is that the affliction did not keep him from becoming successful in his own right, although he choose to live more lavishly as an adult. To this day I do not know why he settled by marrying his housekeeper, Mabel. At least, like his father, he had his own money, and knew not to inquire about mine.

My daughter was another case altogether, and she seemed to develop a taste for men who in my eyes were not much more than vagabonds—all of them I was certain were out for my money. When she finally met Matthew Astor Wilks and accepted his engagement after a two-year courtship, I gave my consent, but only after he waived any right to my money. At the time, I still did not have a will and was not necessarily inclined to leave my fortune to my children anyway. Wilks, a minor heir to the Astor fortune, entered the marriage with $2,000,000 of his own, enough to assure me that he wasn't simply gold-digging.

Although I had established an acceptable, if not happy life in Vermont, by the turn of the century, the state seemed to be taxing everything, with property owners bearing the brunt of the burden, and so I opted to move elsewhere. I eventually got into the habit of moving fairly regularly, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, renting most often, so as to avoid establishing a residence permanent enough to attract the attention of tax officials in any state. Having lived a frugal life, allowed me the mobility, although as I became older, I faced more physical challenges, but still would not pay a company to move what few possessions I owned.

After my last move, I suffered from a bad hernia, but refused to have an operation because it cost $150 and soon after I suffered a stroke. Annie and Edward wanted me to move into a nursing facility, but I would not. I bought a secondhand wheelchair and relied on that to get around. I was not a religious person, and failed to see how anyone found comfort in dogma. Mabel had “found religion,” and her lady friends at the church prepared meals that she would have Edward bring to me now that I was living in the same New York town. He came alone as I had no desire to see his family. He and Mabel now had a son and daughter of their own.

Obituary:

Hetty Green died in Raleigh, New York City on July 3, 1916, at the age of 81 and was mentioned in the 1915 Guinness Book of World Records as being not only the richest woman in America with a worth of approximately $200 million, but as being the World's Greatest Miser. It is unknown who will inherit her vast fortune. She is survived by her daughter Hetty Sylvia Ann Howland Green Astor Wilks and her son Edward Henry Rowland Green, their spouses and her grandchildren: Mary, Ida, Susan, Emily, Robert. Per her instructions, there will be no funeral service or public burial.

Hetty Green was buried in an unmarked grave in the town cemetery. Those who knew of her surmised her money was probably buried with her, although they doubted it brought her any more happiness beyond the grave than it had here on earth.