Annabel Hill of Waynesboro, Georgia lived a difficult life. At age 66, her husband Lenard killed himself in an attempt to save the family farm with insurance money. But the life insurance didn’t provide nearly enough.
So the farm, which had been in her family for five generations, was scheduled for auction.
But Donald Trump saw the story on NBC Nightly News, and he swung into action! Trump knew that hard-working farmers have made America great, and they deserve our support.
“I saw a story on the news about Annabel Hill, who’d hit bottom,” The Donald writes in his book The America We Deserve.
“It was a very sad situation, and I was moved,” Trump writes in The Art of the Deal. “Here were people who’d worked very hard and honestly all their lives, only to see it all crumble before them. To me, it just seemed wrong.”
Trump reached out to Argenbright, who was able to put Trump in touch with bank that held Hill’s mortgage.
“The next morning, I called and got some vice president on the line,” writes Trump. “I explained that I was a businessman from New York, and that I was interested in helping Mrs. Hill. He told me he was sorry, but that it was too late. They were going to auction off the farm, he said, and ‘nothing or no one is going to stop it.’”
It was then, Trump claims, he decided to talk tough to the banker.
According to Trump’s account, he was willing to get rough with the bank. Trump said he yelled at the banker holding the mortgage, “You listen to me. If you do foreclose, I’ll personally bring a lawsuit for murder against you and your bank, on the grounds that you harassed Mrs. Hill’s husband to his death."
Trump reached out to Atlanta businessman Frank Argenbright, and they both put up the money with the Federal Land Bank for a 30-day option to buy the farm. The auction was called off with only two hours to spare!
During that time, a donation drive helped raise the money to pay for the farm, largely thanks to Trump bringing attention to the cause and his connections to radio shows.
“Financially this was obviously no big deal,” writes Trump in The America We Deserve. “But in human terms, there aren’t words to express what Annabel Hill gave to me. Most of us have a few things in life we would never give back, no matter what. Helping Annabel is that way for me.”
Before she passed away, Mrs. Hill said, “The only way I can explain [Donald Trump’s actions] was God touched his heart.”
Read more: http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/a-66-year-old-widows-farm-faced-foreclosure-then-trump-saved-the-...
