News of my death are untrue - ;o)

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-1999
News of my death are untrue - ;o)
13
Tue, 12-09-2008 - 8:03pm

I know I've been MIA for quite awhile although I do come and read the posts and if I have time, try to respond.  For the past year my life has been, it seems, in constant turmoil.


Last January my mother got very sick and had to have surgery again.  With her drinking and smoking the prognosis was not very good.  She went to the nursing home and when I started to look for an assisted living place found out I no longer had her financial power of attorney, nor her health care power of attorney.  She had made my niece, my late youngest brother's daughter, both powers of attorney, with my 2nd brother as the backup and did not tell my other brother, nor my sister. 


My 2nd brother who is a CPA had cleaned her out financially telling her he was going to "invest" her money.   He used the money to change his "game" room into a "media" room and paid off some of his credit card debt which was in the tens of thousands of dollars. 


My niece knew none of this, just signed the paperwork when he told her to.  He told her not to tell me about any of this because I'd "sue" her.  Needless to say I was furious.  I got my mother to change everything back to me then proceeded to go after my brother.  My mom didn't even have enough money to move to assisted living.  And....when I applied for medical assistance they told me she didn't qualify because she had divested herself of her money.  


My other brother and sister called the CPA brother and told him they both considered him dead to them and to never try to get in touch with them again.  My mother was just beside herself, crying to me that I had to do something, etc.  Luckily, my mother's social worker was friends with my social worker when we adopted Marshall and she tried to help me.  We applied for a special exemption because I said my mother was incompetent when she signed over everything and her doctor agreed - well, maybe not incompetent but just totally drunk.  The bad part was the state would first go after my niece because of the POA and THEN my brother for fraud.  Anyway, in the meantime my mother died in mid July.  I had gotten enough from the little she had left to do a burial trust and then I just paid the rest for her funeral.  I have decided not to pursue my brother in a civil case but he is dead to me as he is to my other siblings.  It has been an extremely stressful time but pursing it would not help my mother anymore.


Then.....in August I took over as treasurer of our athletic booster club at Marsh's high school.  This booster clubs raises over $100000 each year.  Right away I knew something was wrong so I started carefully watching the lady in charge of apparel.  All my life I have had a "feel" for money.  I think that's one of the reasons our business has done so good - I can just "feel" monetary things.  And....I was getting a really bad feeling about this.  I finally knew how to catch her and I went to our school's athletic director with the proof.  He refused to even look at it.  He told me I was ruining the club and if I pursued this, the whole club could fold and where would the money come from.  I talked to our club's president who had just taken over for a guy who was there for 14 years and he didn't know what to do either.  I knew this woman was pulling thousands and nobody would do anything to stop her.  I had made an appointment with a friend of mine who is a municipal judge to ask him how to proceed and then we were going to pull Marsh from the school district and put him in our resident district where he wouldn't have to be red-shirted for sports (Wisconsin law).  Just the thought of that made me cry but I didn't know what else to do and I couldn't just turn a blind eye to this.


I thought the athletic director was speaking for the district and I just couldn't let it go on anymore.  On a Tuesday I spoke to a friend of mine whose sister works for the district and she told me she didn't think her sister knew anything about this.  About an hour later the sister called and asked me what was going on.  I told her the whole story and the next day the superintendent of schools was in my office having me tell him the whole story and having me show him my proof.  I told him I had gone to the athletic director twice who literally threw the paperwork in my face and how I'd planned to go to the authorities on Monday and then we were leaving the district because everybody would be so mad at me they'd take it out on Marshall.  He told me not to worry and on Thursday the police called me and asked to meet me at the concession stand at the high school.  I told them everything and they decided to set up a sting operation to catch her red handed.  On Friday I took $100's and $50's to the police station where they marked them.  I brought along some old hooded sweatshirts of Marsh's for them to wear.  That night at the homecoming game people presented her with the marked bills to buy raffle tickets.  This woman pocketed ALL the large marked bills.  They arrested her and found them all in a hidden compartment in her vehicle.  Her best friend was our club's secretary who resigned because she thought the police had set up Ms. Thief.  After the arrest more people came forward with some "interesting" stories and we're still waiting for charges to be filed while our money is being held as evidence.  When I look back on it, I just can't believe I was able to do this.  Things have not been easy since because there are still some people who don't believe she would do things like that but last year at the school's fall craft fair our apparel grossed around $1600 while this year we did almost $4300 in THIS economy.  I know we did even better last year and I'd be willing to bet $3000+ walked about that door that day.  Now the entire club is under the scrutiny of the district and everybody else.  I've implement strict cash handling policies and financial controls but still have to work with that athletic director who almost lost his job over this.  He does not feel real kindly toward me.  The superintendent told me that if I feel any repercussions over this to come directly to him.  Honestly, I would do the same thing over again, but......it's been soooo stressful.


Then....I'm also the president of our high school's parent club and I have found out that our treasurer and program chair is a maniac-depressive.  People had told me this but I thought it was the stress of a lawsuit she was going through - it wasn't - that's just the way she is (found out the reason for the lawsuit had to do with her maniac-depressive state in a business transaction she had been involved in).  She goes on these binges of making all these huge grand plans then splat.....goes into this withdrawal where nothing gets carried through.  I told her last Friday I cannot work like that.  When I promise something I deliver or I'm DOA.  She cannot make grand plans, tell every one this is what we are doing and then just disappear.  Last August she was going to redesign our web page.  Two weeks ago the past president emailed me and asked me to take her name off the webpage and suggested I update the meeting dates for 08-09.  I just assumed the gal who said she was going to do it, did - I was wrong.  Last week - four months later - she sent me a SEVEN page website that just rambled on and on - totally unusable.  I just changed the officers' names, phone numbers, meeting dates and locations and topics for each meeting.  I'm going to see our principal next week to figure out what the hell to do about this mess.


Anyway, in the meantime our youngest daughter, Kat, is having health problems.  Insomnia runs in my family - I don't have it but all my siblings and both our daughters do.  She's on so many medications which have caused her to lose so much weight and she was just a little peanut to begin with.  She's under 5' tall and probably doesn't even weigh 100# anymore.  Now she's having kidney problems.  Her whole life she's been sick and has had cancer twice.  She has three kids - one from her first marriage and two from her current marriage.  I'm so worried about her it's just making me sick.  She is in the process of going back to court to get full custody of her oldest daughter and we're helping her financially to do that.  Her first husband is a drunk and their daughter who is almost 10 just cries and cries when she has to go stay with him.  He hasn't paid a penny of child support for years but gets to take her a deduction on his taxes every other year.  Kat's current husband has put her on his insurance policy because the ex lost his job and never told Kat.  Her current husband loves this kid like his own and glady pays for her but Kat has finally had it because our granddaughter is so unhappy.  The ex has hooked up with a woman who has two teenage boys and they are so mean to our granddaughter and she's so afraid of them - just thinking about it makes me feel sick.


Anyway, that's been my life in a nutshell the past year.  Lots of good things too.  Marsh got his drivers' license.  Hard to believe that little 8 year old is now 16 and 6' tall and weighs 190#.  Our oldest granddaughter is 15 and is a sophomore with him - she's turned into a beautiful young woman and we get to see a lot of her.  Marsh still plays football, basketball and baseball although baseball has become his favorite.  Our business continues to do well although we're preparing for next year and a possible economic downturn. 


Rain, you can stop your snow dancing - I think it's snowed every other day here for the past two weeks.  We never even finished our fall cleanups but for us snow = $$'s.


I am going to try and get her more often - I miss you all.


Take care,


love,


e

 

 

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-20-2003
Mon, 12-15-2008 - 10:20am
You are so very welcome!!

       


 


                              &n

Avatar for cl_campmum_of3
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Mon, 12-15-2008 - 11:53am

Eldri, I have to first say I am proud of you for standing up and doing something.

     

 

          

Avatar for jan_magee
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Mon, 12-15-2008 - 1:04pm

Eldri, I'm so glad you're back! I've missed you!


Sorry to hear about your mom. No matter the strained relationship, she's always and forever your mom.


I would tell you to send that lady down here, as she'd fit right in to our state government, but on second thought, she's penny ante! Here it's millions, not thousands! LOL

Jan


chat cl for Your Well-Being 43-59 (Health) - Tues. and Fri. at 9 PM ET - other Y W-B chats every weekday at Noon ET and Sat. at 9 PM ET!


Jan


 

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