Book Description

Where inherited wealth and family intersect--not always for the good.Explores one of American society¿s endlessly fascinating scenarios. Best of all, the story is true. The author takes the reader on a journey beginning with Revolutionary War heroes down through succeeding generations of Civil War notables, industrial titans, an improbable love story with an eleven-year courtship, a couple besotted and befuddled by all that is given them, and finally, a son who not only survives but thrives.The family tree is populated with such historical families as the Shields, Crittendens, Olivers, Nevilles, and Craigs; military, political, and industrial leaders of their time.The story is one of east and west, north and south: Western Pennsylvania, land of opportunity in the Republic¿s early years and later a seat of eastern high society; California immediately after World War II as the new land of opportunity; dreams of railroads and then an airline to open up vast territories of Mexico; brother-against-brother in war. El Chepe and Ramsa; exotic adventures and improbable schemes; lives fulfilled and lives wasted, it portrays the schizophrenia of people ricocheting between vast opportunity and the inability to make a life in the shadow of great wealth.The story is accompanied by astonishing first hand accounts and documentation kept by the author¿s family. Photographs, diaries, and letters give credence to accounts and give voice to the people who wrote them. These are not far-away characters in a fairy tale but real flesh-and-blood human beings speaking through the generations.