- “Sit down, Ashlyn,” Tom said.
- She sat. In the other chair. Next to me. Very straight. Her hands in her lap. Her perfect pink nails.
- She looked like she was going to throw up.
- “In 1985,” Tom said, “Iowa was in the middle of the worst farm crisis since the Great Depression.”
- He looked at Ashlyn.
- “You’re from Chicago, aren’t you?” he said.
- “Naperville,” she said.
- “You know anything about the farm crisis?”
- She shook her head.
- “Interest rates hit eighteen percent,” Tom said. “Land values dropped by half. In two years. A farm worth a million dollars in 1980 was worth five hundred thousand by 1985. But the loan against it was still a million.”
- He shook his head.
- “Farmers couldn’t pay,” he said. “Banks foreclosed. Families lost land they’d had for a hundred years. There were auctions every weekend. Men hanged themselves in their barns.”
- “Banks failed too,” Tom said. “Hundreds of them. All across the Midwest. Because the farmers couldn’t pay, the banks couldn’t pay. In Iowa alone, more than a hundred banks closed between 1984 and 1987.”
- He looked at the photo on the wall.
- “Prairie State almost did,” he said.
- “My father was the president,” Tom said. “Walter Callahan. He ran this bank from 1962 to 1991.”
- He looked at Grandpa.
- “In January of 1986,” he said, “the regulators came. The FDIC. Two men in suits from Kansas City. They went through our books for a week.”
- He swallowed.
- “They said we were insolvent,” Tom said. “Too many bad farm loans. Not enough capital. They gave my father thirty days. Raise a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in new capital. Or they’d shut us down.”
- “A hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Tom said. “In 1986. In a town of three hundred people. In the middle of a farm crisis.”
- He laughed. A short, bitter laugh.
- “Nobody had a hundred and fifty dollars,” he said.
- “And then word got out,” Tom said. “That the bank was in trouble.”
- He looked at Ashlyn.
- “Do you know what a bank run is?” he asked.
- “When everybody tries to take their money out at once,” she said quietly.
- “When everybody tries to take their money out at once,” Tom said. “Because they’re afraid it’s going to be gone tomorrow.”
- “It started on a Monday,” Tom said. “February tenth. People lined up outside the door at seven in the morning. The line went down Main Street. Past the Casey’s. Past the Lutheran church.”
- He looked at Grandpa.
- “Farmers,” he said. “Widows. Teachers. The guy who ran the grain elevator. Everybody wanted their money.”
- “And the bank didn’t have it,” I said.
- “The bank didn’t have it,” Tom said. “Not all of it. Not at once. If the run kept going for three days, we’d have to close the doors. And if we closed the doors, the regulators would never let us open them again.”
- “I was nineteen,” Tom said. “A sophomore at Iowa State. I came home that weekend. I stood in the lobby. In the old building. With the wood paneling. And I watched my father stand at the front window. Looking at that line.”
- He shook his head.
- “He was fifty-one years old,” Tom said. “I’d never seen him scared. That day, he was terrified.”
- “On Wednesday morning,” Tom said, “February twelfth, the line was longer than ever. Two hundred people. In the snow. Ten degrees.”
- He looked at the photo.
- “And then a truck pulled up,” he said.
- “A red Ford,” Tom said. “A ‘79 F-100. Covered in mud.”
- He looked at Grandpa.
- “Earl got out,” he said. “In overalls. And a feed-store cap. And muddy boots. And June got out of the passenger side.”
- “They didn’t get in line,” Tom said.
- “They walked right past it,” Tom said. “Past two hundred people. To the front door. Earl knocked. My father opened it.”
- He looked at me.
- “Your grandfather walked into this bank,” Tom said, “took off his cap, and said, Walt, how much do you need?”
- I looked at my grandfather.
- He was still looking at the floor.
- “My father told him,” Tom said. “A hundred and fifty thousand. In twenty-eight days.”
- He shook his head.
- “And Earl reached into the bib pocket of his overalls,” Tom said, “and took out a piece of paper.”
- He looked at the photo on the wall.
- At the piece of paper my grandparents were holding between them. Smiling.
- “A cashier’s check,” Tom said. “From the Federal Land Bank in Omaha.”
- He looked at me.
- “Earl and June had mortgaged their farm,” he said. “The Doyle place. Six hundred and forty acres. That had been in the family for a hundred years. Free and clear. Never had a dollar of debt on it.”
- My breath stopped.
- “They mortgaged it,” Tom said. “On Tuesday. They drove to Omaha. Four hours in a snowstorm. They signed the papers. They got a check.”
- He looked at Grandpa.
- “Eighty-six thousand dollars,” he said.
- “Earl handed it to my father,” Tom said. “And said, Put it in as capital. Buy stock with it. Whatever you need to do.”
- “My father said, Earl, I can’t take this. If the bank fails, you lose your farm.”
- Tom looked at my grandfather.
- “Do you know what Earl said?”
- I shook my head.
- “He said,” Tom said, “Walt, if this bank fails, half of Kossuth County loses their farms anyway. Mine’s just one more.”
- I looked at my grandfather.
- He was turning his cap in his hands. Around and around. By the bill.
- He still hadn’t looked up.
- “But that wasn’t enough,” Tom said. “Eighty-six thousand. We needed a hundred and fifty. And there were still two hundred people in line.”
- He looked at the window. At the glass doors. At Main Street.
- “So Earl went back outside,” Tom said.
- “He walked out the front door,” Tom said. “And he stood on the steps. In the snow. In his overalls. In front of two hundred people.”
- He looked at Ashlyn.
- “And he took his cap off,” Tom said. “And he said, I just put my farm in this bank. Every acre. If you take your money out, you’re taking it out of my pocket. And out of your neighbors’. And out of your own kids’ futures. Because if this bank closes, there’s no bank in Corwith. And there’s no bank, there’s no loans. And there’s no loans, there’s no spring planting. For anybody.”
- “He said,” Tom said, “I’m not asking you to put money in. I’m asking you to leave it where it is. For thirty days. And trust your neighbors.”
- The office was silent.
- “And then June stood up next to him,” Tom said. “And she said, If anybody here can’t make it thirty days without their money, come see me. I’ll bring you a casserole. And I’ll lend you twenty dollars out of my egg money.”
- I laughed.
- I couldn’t help it. Through the tears.
- That was Grandma.
- That was exactly Grandma.
- “Half the line went home,” Tom said.
- “That afternoon,” Tom said. “Half of them. They just turned around and went home.”
- He shook his head.
- “And the next morning,” he said, “farmers started coming in. Not to withdraw. To deposit. Ten dollars. Fifty. A hundred. Old Mrs. Brekke brought in a coffee can with four hundred and twelve dollars in quarters and dimes. She’d been saving it since 1941.”
- “In twenty-six days,” Tom said, “we raised a hundred and sixty-one thousand dollars.”
- He looked at the photo.
- “From three hundred people,” he said. “In a farm crisis.”
- “The regulators came back in March,” Tom said. “They counted the capital. They looked at the books.”
- He looked at Grandpa.
- “Prairie State Bank stayed open,” he said.
- “That picture,” Tom said. He pointed at the wall. “My father took it. On Valentine’s Day. February fourteenth, 1986. The day Earl and June bought the stock.”
- He looked at it for a long time.
- “My father hung it in this office,” he said. “The day it was taken. It’s been here thirty-eight years. It’s been in every remodel. It’ll be here after I’m gone.”
- “Earl owns thirty-one percent of this bank,” Tom said.
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