Bio: Home ownership in the early years

As a baby my parents may have held much wealth, but they owned my baby crib, the house holding the crib, and the small nursery business on 40 acres of Ozark land which paid all the expenses. The business was started in the early '60s with $200 cash and a lot of credit. The business provided for few luxuries, but everything that grew on that property contributed to the family upkeep, including the pears from the pear trees and the gooseberries growing on the chain link fence. Naturally there was also a vegetable garden to keep the family's cash costs down to a minimum. With an old fashioned meat grinder, rolling pins, cast iron skillets, and other kitchen bric-a-brac, there wasn't from scratch that could not be made for a family of three, then four, then five, and all the pets and strays that showed up for a meal. The property was just outside the city limits of Joplin, Missouri, and most likely escaped a few municipal expenses and fees.

It was only a few years before my parents announced their divorce at my age of twelve that we began our first experiences of renting. It was strange living in somebody else's house, but it was a feeling that quickly became the norm through adulthood. The cooking skills carried over, but nothing the the properties that qualified as my residence provided anything other than shelter. Our family bought and sold residences when moving to Columbia and to Neosho, but they always constituted our house, our yard, and our garden. It was a working class lifestyle with college educated parents, which included few luxuries that the grandparents did not chip in for (more about that later).

However eager my parents were to own their homes rather than rent, they did not think of themselves as real estate investors. There were no other property holdings other than the family residence.

In Robert Kiyosaki's model, our family may have started as business owners, but we boys were eventually taught by example to be employees. Our mother, the high school guidance counselor, counseled us to choose a career. We were all reasonably good students in high school, but lousy students of life, so to speak. For the better, we three boys realized that working for somebody else guaranteed wealth building mediocrity. My brothers have already built successful businesses, both of which required real estate holdings that served as part of their capital structure. This brother understands the principles, but has only built wealth up to now for other people.

My 2011 move to Pittsburgh in general and Braddock in particular serves as a pilgrimage the likes that Andrew Carnegie's family made about 160 years ago. Upon arrival I find a city filled with renters, living in houses that were built by home owners who worked principally in manufacturing. There are families here who deserve a start with a family home like my family did in Joplin over 50 years ago. To fill myself with the spirit of Andrew Carnegie, it was not enough to be in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. My rental's deck overlooks the Edgar Thompson steel mill, and the nearest bus stop is next to the former president of US Steel Charles Schwab's mansion. My job for the last four years is on the very site of the Homestead Steel Works, the site of the Pinkerton Strike.

These neighborhoods are populated mostly with poor people on a path to deeper poverty. They may be surrounded by the Carnegie legacy, but are in no way imbued with his spirit. Carnegie's family may have been poor in wealth, and completely unfamiliar with any sense of entitlement, but the young boy felt rich in opportunity. The trick here will not be to just shadow Carnegie's life with my own, but to share that spirit with others who have developed a blind spot to it.