         Occasionally I meet somebody outside of the context of my personal history, and in one way or another, it will become evident to them that I'm wealthy. And they say, "I'll be damned! You're not at all what I would expect." Hearing that always pleases me: I take it as a high compliment. I've had to work hard not to buy into the stereotypes about rich people. And I see those stereotypes everywhere. I want people to make up their mindsnot only about me, but also about other people I know who have moneybased on who they are, based on what they are doing, and based on what they love.
- A young heir interviewed by The Inheritance Project. |
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S O P H I E C A R L S O N page 2
The household I grew up in was filled with people. There was our family of eight, and then there was the phalanx of mercenaries who ran our lives. We had cooks during the week and different cooks on the weekend, we had a laundry lady, we had some people who didn't come on a regular basis, and we had a nanny. Pearl was kind of an upstairs maid. The laundry lady, Esther, had worked for our family for as long as I can remember. Her parents had been slaves. We had a handyman named Jake who had Parkinson's disease. He was kind of wiggly. He cut the grass, painted the back porch steps, hosed down the driveway, and washed the cars. We had a chauffeur to drive Dad around after he retired.
Nanny was white, but no one else was. When I was very small, I thought that when you got older, you turned black and worked in a car wash. I remember asking my grandmother, "Well, when are you going to turn black?" She seemed awfully old to still be white.
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