A FAMILY STORY ABOUT BANK RUNS.

A FAMILY STORY ABOUT BANK RUNS. My father told us several times at dinner that one of his earliest memories was of his mother sobbing on her bed because the family had lost its savings. This would have been when my father was four and it would have been the Panic of 1907. Probably their local bank had failed.

This wikipedia entry tells a dramatic story about how J P Morgan acted as banker of last resort on a national level. (The United States did not have a central bank.)

My father never bought a share of stock until he was over 60.