ART/Sherri Winston

Millionaires of the Past

MARY ELLEN PLEASANT—solemn housemaid to self-made millionaire.

WHAT HAPPENED TO HER FORTUNE?

*She befriended a bank clerk named Thomas Bell, and the two formed a partnership. No doubt Mary Ellen found Thomas useful because having their accounts in the name of a white man made life simpler. That is, until Bell died in 1892 and his greedy, thieving wife sued Mary Ellen for her part of the multi-million-dollar fortune. The former Mrs. Bell used the courts to take everything Mary Ellen had earned, and Mary Ellen died penniless in 1904, having lost everything, including the home she’d come to love.

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