A memorial to Edith Carlson, b. March 19, 1896
The reason that I am formally opening trading on this site on March 19th is not that I have some perverse desire to make things difficult by starting on a quad witching day, but that it is the birthday of my beloved late grandmother, Edith Carlson of Malden, Massachusetts.
She was the one who gave me the trading bug; born in the nineteenth century, she came to America in her twenties and settled just north of Boston. She worked hard every day at not very attractive jobs, but saved her money and was smitten with the stock market. She had a bit of speculator in her, and I hope a bit of it rubbed off.
Many times as a boy I would take the elevated railway trains in to Boston with her on an errand to some broker or bank. It was still the era of ticker tape, and I never forgot the visit to the old brokerage houses where she would jawbone with the brokers while I watched the numbers fly by and tried to learn. I still have one of the old tapes on my desk right now as a keepsake and remindder of those times.
Edith lived to the age of 105, independently until close to her death, and she still tooks trains to the banks in Boston well into her nineties. I loved her and she loved me, so if I have any talent for the market, it is all to her credit.
And that is why I why a fiscal year around here starts on the 19th of March. If Edith is watching I hope she enjoys. And I hope you do too.
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