My grandmother Big Mama said that when she died, she wanted her home to stay in the family. Specifically, she wanted my disabled brother to always have a place to live. I tried to persuade Big Mama to put her wishes in a will. She never did, and soon after she died, the home was sold.
I get sad when I ride by that rowhouse in Baltimore. The hedges that my grandmother so meticulously kept trimmed were cut down by the new owner. The flowers are gone. It’s unfortunate that the house she worked so hard to pay off is no longer in our family.
The lesson is that if you want to leave a financial legacy, you have to do more than just tell folks about it; you have to plan for it. In the case of a home, you have to make provisions for it to stay in the family.
In her debut novel, Angela Flournoy explores family and finances by taking readers into the lives of the Detroit family of Francis and Viola Turner. I’ve chosen her book, “The Turner House,” as the Color of Money Book Club selection of the month. It has been released recently in paperback (Mariner Books, $14.95).
My picks are typically directly related to personal finance, but on occasion I like to select something out of the box. I’m a member of another book club that reads mostly fiction. “The Turner House,” a National Book Award finalist, was a recent choice. As I read the book, I was enthralled by the financial messages Flournoy weaves in the legacy left by her characters.
In the book, a low-income couple migrated from the South and realized the American Dream of homeownership. But when Francis dies and Viola needs too much care to stay in the home alone, she moves in with her eldest son, Cha-Cha, who is the most financially responsible of the lot.
What many people might relate to in this book are the struggles of taking care of an aging parent, and the income disparity and degrees of financial responsibility that can create strife in a family. Central to the book is the question of what to do with the house on Yarrow Street, where the Turners raised their 13 children.
Lelah, the youngest, gets evicted from her apartment and secretly moves into the house, which had been empty. Before moves in with her son, Viola, on the advice of her daughter Netti, refinances into a $40,000 mortgage. The 2008 housing crisis crashed home values, and the market value of the Turners’ home plunged to $4,000. Netti defends the refinance.
“All of y’all were broke or busy feeding your kids, and those Social Security checks weren’t enough for mama to survive on,” Netti tells her siblings.
Cha-Cha, who stepped in to take charge of his mother’s financial affairs after she had a stroke, wants to sell. Some siblings agree. Others want to hold on to their childhood home.
Each sibling “took a quick assessment of the level of personal guilt in the situation,” Flournoy wrote. “When was the last time they’d lived on Yarrow? The last time they’d visited, or added equity to the house in some way?”
Silently, to themselves, they all “conclude that they were culpable in some way or other, even if it was just for not having enough money saved up to hand over the $40,000 right now.”
Viola, who had lived on Yarrow Street for 50 years, doesn’t want to sell, telling her grown children: “I plan on moving back as soon as I get strong again.”
Amid the angst in “The Turner House” are humor and an absorbing look at family dynamics. Eventually, there is a realization that a home might be lost but never the memories made within.
This book club doesn’t meet in person. We get the book and get together for the live, online discussion. This month’s will be at noon Eastern on May 5 at washingtonpost.com/discussions. Flournoy will join me and take questions.
Michelle Singletarywelcomes comments and column ideas. Reach her in care of The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, DC 20071; orsingletarym@washpost.com
