Growing Rich - Arabictrader.com

ONE-ONE-ONE
ELIZABETH R. BRAMWELL
While Shelby Davis was practically born speaking the language
of bulls and bears, Wall Street was never a part of Elizabeth
Bramwell’s childhood vocabulary. The frequent topic of discussion
in her home was music. Her dad was an organist who conducted five
different choirs, while her mom ran the house and took care of
Elizabeth and her younger brother. “My parents never talked about
business,” she says. “I didn’t even know what a mutual fund was until
I got out of college.” Bramwell describes herself as a shy late bloomer
who graduated from high school at the age of 17, a year younger
than most of her classmates. She was awarded a scholarship to attend
college and initially thought about becoming a doctor. But by the
time she graduated from Bryn Mawr, she was tired of school and
didn’t want to spend several more years studying to be a physician.
“I was a chemistry major,” she notes. “However, if I had to do it over,
I would have majored in history or economics instead.”
WRITING THE FACTS
With her degree in hand, Bramwell went off to Washington, D.C.,
where she had an opportunity to write a question-and-answer column
that was syndicated to 75 regional newspapers across the country. “I
answered readers’ queries,” she explains. “Questions had to be factual
and ranged from which president had the most children to what was
the fastest animal. If I didn’t know the answer, I would research it.
The column was originally started in the early 1920s. That’s when it
had its heyday, before the development of radio and TV. At one point,
the column was carried by some 300 newspapers. By the time I got
there, it was used basically as filler, although it ran regularly in such
big newspapers as the Washington Star. I put together eight questions
for each day of the week.”
Bramwell found this job through a friend at Bryn Mawr, whose