In people’s imaginations there is the dream of being a tycoon and gaining all the power in the world with money: clothes, trips, businesses, companies and endless assets to leave as a fortune. However, not all billionaires live with such an imagination of showing off their assets. Discretion or stinginess? To do this, we must delve deeper into the life of Hetty Green, known as the “Witch of Wall Street.”
His story
Green was born on November 21, 1834 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, to a wealthy family. At 10 years old, she was already considered one of the most millionaire women in the North American country, thanks to everything she learned from her grandfather by having worked as her secretary at such a young age, according to National Magazine. Massachusetts.
The tycoon was always very intelligent when it came to doing business and expanding the family fortune left to her by her father and aunt, as revealed by the journalist and historian Charles Slack, author of the most complete biography of Green, in 2004. The woman dedicated herself to purchasing and sales of real estate and mortgages.
Likewise, he granted loans and invested in the stock market, such as stocks in the mining and railroad sectors and government bonds, his biography says.
”Their real estate investment strategy was to buy a property cheap when no one wanted it, hold on to it until interest arose, and then sell it high,” said Ellen Terrell, a specialist at the US Library of Congress, in a 2012 publication. dedicated to Green.
However, she was a woman who was not very generous with her luxuries, power and money. According to the magazine, Green preferred to save her fortune to avoid paying the high taxes that corresponded to her large sums of money.
A lot of money, a lot of self-consciousness
According to statements given by sources close to The New York Times, Green lived in cramped apartments in Brooklyn and Hoboken to avoid paying high amounts of money in taxes for luxurious mansions. Likewise, she preferred to eat on very inexpensive plates and not on porcelain tableware.
In addition, she decided to wear cotton dresses instead of expensive and popular fabrics of the time, such as silk and lace. However, the most shocking thing is that, despite having been the most sought-after millionaire of the moment, she put her abstention from spending her money above her health, since she did not mind attending charity clinics in order not to pay. a single peso, even if she was surrounded by numbers of people.
The Witch of Wall Street
Although Green became a very thrifty woman in order to evade taxes, she was a person who knew how to mark the history of the United States by having placed the female gender at the top, when women’s rights were null.
Her empowerment led her to become the most powerful woman and surpassed the opposite gender, a situation that was almost impossible to happen in the 18th century. Given that, Hetty Green was nicknamed the “Witch of Wall Street”, thanks to her talent and extensive knowledge of finance, also because she always dressed in black and because of her stories about her ruthless personality.
Why ruthless? Everything indicates that Green was involved in several lawsuits, the vast majority of which were against her own family. However, those were not the only characteristics for which she was nicknamed that way, since she always carried a gun with her because she believed that “there was a conspiracy of lawyers against her,” commented The New. York Times.
His entry into the Guinness and his heirs
One of the most tragic stories of her greed is that of her son, who suffered a leg amputation because Hetty delayed his treatment, insisting on not spending money and seeking free medical care.
Despite her wealth, estimated at more than $2.3 billion today, Hetty Green never stopped being stingy. She died in 1916 at the age of 81 in New York. The cause of her death was a stroke, which she suffered after a fight with her maid, who had asked for an increase in her meager salary.
Hetty Green was recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the “stingiest person in the world.” At the time of her death, she left an enormous fortune, but her children did not inherit her extreme stinginess. On the contrary, they were generous; Her daughter, for example, built a free hospital with the money inherited from her.
