Translations:Chapter One Trey/45/zh-cn

My mom, Mary Maxwell, grew up in the embrace of a family culture set by her grandfather J. W. Maxwell, a banker who doted on my mom and was a model for a life of constant self-improvement. As a boy in Nebraska, J.W. quit school and talked himself into a job digging out the basement of a house owned by a local banker in return for money and room and board. When J.W. put down his shovel two months later, the man offered him a job at his bank. He was fifteen. After a few years learning the banking business, he moved to Washington state to carve out a new life. The 1893 depression wiped out his fledgling bank, and the coastal town he bet would boom instead went bust. He eventually took a steady job as a federal bank examiner, work that had him away from his family for months on end traveling on horseback, wagon, and train around the West measuring the health of small banks. Eventually he succeeded in starting his own bank. By the time he died in 1951 at age eighty-six, my great-grandfather was chairman of a major bank in Seattle and an active civic leader. He had also served as a mayor, a state legislator, a school board member, and a director of the Federal Reserve.

我的母亲玛丽成长的家庭文化，是她的祖父J. W. 麦斯威尔（J. W.Maxwell）建立的。她的祖父是一位银行家，非常宠爱我的母亲，终其一生都是持续自我提升的典范。麦斯威尔在内布拉斯加长大，辍学后就说服当地一位银行家，让他帮忙挖掘住家的地下室，借此换取金钱与食宿。两个月后，麦斯威尔放下铲子时，那位银行家直接要麦斯威尔到他的银行上班。当年他才15岁。他花了几年时间学习银行业务，之后搬到华盛顿展开新生活。1893年的经济萧条摧毁了他刚起步的银行业务，原本他预期经济会起飞的沿海小镇破产了。后来，他找了一份安稳的工作，成为联邦银行审查员。这份工作使他必须长时间离家，骑马、坐马车、搭火车在西部各地出差，评估小型银行的财务状况。最终他成功创立了自己的银行。1951年，当他在86岁过世时，我的外曾祖父已经是西雅图一家大银行的董事长，也是相当活跃的公民领袖。他担任过市长、州议员、学校董事会成员、联邦储备银行的总监。