Chapter 4 - Henry Price
My husband Henry had been dead six years.
He would have hated the diner.
Not because of the coffee.
Because of the soup.
Henry believed chicken soup should be clear.
“If I can’t see the bottom of the bowl, somebody’s hiding something.”
We were married forty-seven years.
Met at twenty.
Married at twenty-two.
Had Denise at twenty-seven.
Lauren at thirty.
Henry founded Price Commercial Kitchens with his brother in 1984.
Restaurant equipment.
Refrigeration.
Industrial food-preparation systems.
School cafeterias.
Hospital kitchens.
Not glamorous.
Profitable.
By the time Henry was sixty-three, a larger public company offered to acquire most of the business.
Headline value:
$92 million.
Again:
Not ninety-two million into our bank account.
Taxes.
Brother’s ownership.
Management equity.
Debt.
Transaction costs.
Retained minority position.
After everything, our share of cash and securities from the sale was approximately $41 million.
Over the following years, retained equity appreciated.
Investments grew.
We created the revocable trust.
By Henry’s final year, total assets under it were around $53 million.
He died from pancreatic cancer.
The disease took ten months.
Money helped.
We had specialists.
Nurses.
A home setup.
Time.
It did not buy an eleventh month.
After the funeral, Denise said:
“Dad always said family comes first.”
Lauren said:
“We’ll take care of you.”
I believed them.
May you like
They believed themselves.
At first.
