[legion]

My family homesteaded in Beecher City, Illinois sometime in the 1800's. From what I gather, I'm related to pretty much everyone in that small town and nearby Cowden. During the Great Depression, it's my understanding that my great grandmother saved the local bank by essentially buying it. I do know that she also owned and ran the local newspaper, which today is the Beecher City Journal/Cowden Reflector.

In 1986 my great-grandmother died. I'd met her a handful of times but considering that I was 7, I can't say that I really knew her well. Everyone tells me she was a the heart of her small community and one of the nicest human beings they've ever met.

My grandmother, my great grandmother's daughter, was head of the Illinois Nurses Association. From what I've pieced together, my grandfather, her husband, was an unemployed alcoholic adulterer whom enjoyed the politically well-connected lifestyle that my grandmother provided him. (I've got pictures of my grandmother at big gala balls in Springfield with former governors and celebrities like Carol Burnett). He was a mean drunk and beat his three children and my grandmother at the slightest infraction. At some point between 1976 and 1979, she filed for divorce from my grandfather.

My grandfather did not take the news well. I don't know many of the details, but at some point in 1979 or 1980, he showed up at my great-grandmother's house (where my grandmother was living) with a shotgun and murdered my grandmother. My father was somehow able to keep the story from being printed or broadcast--something that amazes me to this day as it surely would have been big news in the state at the time.

My grandfather went to prison. My father had a breakdown that ended with him quitting his job at IBM and uprooting the family to Southern California.

A couple of years ago I Googled my grandfather's name and I came across a thesis a law student had done on him. Apparently my grandfather sued the estate of my grandmother for "his" share. As a direct result, there is a law in Illinois named after my grandmother that bars a murderer from recovering assets from the estate of his murder victim.

Anyway, back to my great grandmother. My father was executor of her estate. He convinced all of the heirs to put their inheritances into a trust. My father wasn't much better with money than his father, though he did not drink. He pretty much raided most the estate and spent the money. Apparently there was a small bit he couldn't touch: the shares of the little bank my great grandmother bought during the Depression.

The bank she owned had merged and issued new shares over the years, diluting her ownership share. Unbeknown to me, my sister and I had inherited his share of the bank when he died in 2006. Last January, one of the other heirs, a distant cousin, contacted my aunt, the new executor of her estate, to dissolve the estate's ownership in what is now Cowden Bancorp. My sister and I each got .833 of a share, or about $1,365.

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I received a 1099-B in the mail. I am LOVING the world of capital gains and cost basis. Speaking of cost basis, I have no f***ing clue how to figure it out! The company is not publicly traded and the shares were bought by the holding company. I'm not even sure which date I should use for the cost basis: The date my great grandmother died? The date my father died? I've got no clue.