My grandfather Earl Kuntz passed away last week at age 94. He was my only grandparent for most of my life, and I’m so thankful he was able to stick around for a while. Not only was he a man who set an admirable example for everyone around him, but he was also incredibly supportive. He was a subscriber to this blog and an AAII member for many years before I started working here. Every time I saw him in recent years, he would ask, “How’s the blog?”
For a minute there, I didn’t have much to say on the topic of hereditary financial habits. I thought I had already distilled so much of how I was raised into how I manage my finances. My money is working for me in a few different investing vehicles, which gives me the opportunity to be even more independent should something happen to me. I have enough in savings that it doesn’t all have to be delegated to the scary emergencies anymore, it can be for the fun emergencies too!
As my family and I decided how we would honor my grandfather, we gathered old photos and shared memories of how he was thrust into the family telecommunications business at a young age, how he met his wife at work and made his work his life. Here are a few lessons I learned from him over the years. I hope I can do his wisdom justice.
Everything is an investment. During my lifetime, we helped my grandpa move twice. Both times, trying to get rid of things that were old, expired or downright dangerous to have lying around was like taking away everything he owned. To my grandpa, everything was an investment. He was born in 1929, months before the stock market crash that same year, and he was raised by two immigrants who were trying to get their business off the ground. In his eyes, clothing, furniture, plates, glasses—any material thing—was something that could appreciate in value and be sold for more than he bought it. Though there were things he held onto that were worth a pretty penny, many times this wasn’t the case, and we would have to negotiate with him to sell at lower prices or to give up on the sales completely. He even considered the things he passed down to me and my family to be investments and encouraged us to seek out more money for things.
Everyone has the right to be a customer. One of the first stories my grandpa told us was about a time when he was a kid at the soda fountain and a Black customer was turned away. My grandpa recalled that he was sitting enjoying his drink and a Black man came in ready to buy something. However, the man behind the counter said, “We don’t serve you here.” My grandpa was appalled at this already, but even more so when the Black customer said, “But I’ve got money, sir!” He was forced to leave without buying anything. It was in this moment my grandpa came to the conclusion that there was no difference between him and the Black man, that the man behind the counter was the problem in this equation, not the customer who had every right to pay for and receive goods and services. If my grandpa could solve all of the socioeconomic problems in the U.S. to put everyone on equal footing, he would. He carried out this sentiment not only when it came to business, but also with how he treated everyone in his personal life. He spoke to people about who they were and what made them tick with the same level of interest he had in business.
Sometimes you have to dream a little. My mom will say of her parents and how they ran their telecommunications business that my grandma was the realist and my grandpa was the dreamer. More specifically, business decisions were driven by my grandpa’s willingness for everything to work out and were made possible by my grandma, the treasurer, crunching the numbers. He would buy up accounts, answering service companies and locations, and he would merge them in order to grow the business. My grandma was the one who kept his feet on the ground and the company profitable.
When I say my grandpa made his work his life, I mean that quite literally: He never retired. Work was the one thing that “pushed all of [his] buttons.” Though I don’t have the same focused feeling about any one thing in my life—finding joy from art, music, dancing, reading and writing—I admire just how much of his life he gave to what he loved. It has been an honor to know him and tell his story.
