Posted on 12/09/2002 9:40:08 AM PST by Dallas
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) -
A woman who had been wandering the streets for eight years was headed home for a Christmas reunion with her family because she remembered she once had invested in the stock market.
When a bedraggled Alice Perley wandered into the brokerage firm of A.G. Edwards & Sons in Nashville earlier this week the first person she met by the elevator was Michael Guess.
"I could tell she was homeless," Guess, a financial analyst with the firm, told Reuters on Friday. "It was obvious she needed help."
When the woman told him she thought she had some money invested with the firm, Guess was skeptical but "we need to help people regardless and I wasn't going to walk away from her." So the 44-year-old Guess invited the woman into his office and listened to her story.
"She was vague about everything except that she remembered the name of our firm and felt that somehow she had money with us," said Guess.
Guess said he and another broker took some cash from their own pockets to give her but she refused, insisting she had money in an account.
"I knew something was going on then," Guess said. "So I put through a call to our company's office in Atlanta and asked them to check on it."
A few minutes later he had confirmation that Perley was a client -- and that she had been missing for eight years despite exhaustive search efforts by her family.
Guess said it appeared that Perley, a college graduate with a chemistry degree, property and other investments, had disappeared from her home in Kentucky after a painful divorce. She left a commercial flight during a stopover at Nashville's airport and lived in the woods, on the streets and in shelters in the intervening years.
The firm refused to say what her investment amounted to or to characterize it in any way, citing customer confidentiality.
While Guess was still on the phone with the Edwards office in Atlanta, the woman's brother, Fred Perley of Charlotte, N.C., called and talked to her.
"She was happy -- really very happy when she heard her brother's voice," Guess said. "It was obvious she was ready to come home. At that point, I left the office to give them privacy but I don't mind saying I felt a real glow myself."
The brother came to Nashville Friday to take the woman home. Said Guess:
"Well, that's what Christmas is really all about, isn't it? We're not supposed to judge others. We're supposed to remember to help one another and not just walk on by -- aren't we?"
When I left my (insert expletive) in 1988 - he never once said he wanted me to stay because he loved me - it was all "I can't afford this......without you."
For 4 years he held me hostage with "you can't make it in this town without me."
I walked out of there with what I walked in with - my clothes and furniture - and even told him I would pay the cost of the divorce proceedings (that's how badly I wanted out).
During all of this he was using me as a professional/job reference and still had the gall to tell me he expected me to pay his 2 grand in legal fees. I was smart and refused - I later found out he was charged nothing.
Stick by your friend - she's going to need people like you.
About a child in California who's been missing for 6 years, was recently found, with who they suspected killed the childs mother???
This even though today, any of us could get on a computer and find persons with similar name, news stories of her vanishing, and the like.
PS Wonder how much money she had? Apparently she also owned a home
and (assuming there was only one Alice Perley) they could quickly have called her former broker (their brokers stay with them forever) and he would have known all about her circumstances (their brokers usually know the client quite well)...and that would have done it.
With no account number.
"she got arrested. Last spring she was accused of causing a public disturbance and ordered to go to mental health court. She was forced to get a job and work her way into housing, he said.By the time he met his sister Tuesday in front of the A.G. Edwards building, she was ready to come home, Fred Perley said. He credits the judge, Mark Fishburn, and Davidson County's Mental Health Court. ''It's very nice that Nashville has this system, this mental health deferral court.''
I guess the judge also deserves a Christmas Card since it was him who forced her get a job and work her way into housing. I think the judge's decision had a good effect on Ms. Perley.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.