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My wife's family is moderately wealthy, comfortable enough that they can modestly live on investments, (but their spouses, like me, need to work)......Anyway, the family's wealth comes from a printing business that started in 1920's Germany. The family is Jewish and as the Nazis consolidated power, my Father in Law's Father saw the writing on the wall and started taking his income and buying printing equipment and shipping it to relatives in the NYC area. The day after Krystallnacht, my Father in Law, his older sister and his parents made it across the border to Switzerland, then to the USA. My FIL assumed control over the business in the 60s. The company developed a process that only put carbon on appropriate fields of a form so an entire carbon sheet was no longer necessary to make copies as one filled out a form. Eventually, the family owned company was sold to Time Warner.
So, the wealth was created by Grandparents and Parents for their children. The wealth is maintained through investments and not blowing through it buying Ferraris and Jewelry and other ostentatious bullshit.
In my family's case, neither of my Grandfathers graduated High School and they migrated from the Rural South to Gary, Indiana in the late 1920's to work in the Steel Mills, my maternal Grandmother was a maid and then a waitress in a Holiday Inn (from which she received a pension until her death at age 101), my paternal Grandmother earned a Master's in Nursing. With Unions, my Grandfathers made a good living at the mills. Nobody from my Mother's side of the family graduated from college, I am the first college graduate from that family. My Mother's Sister was a Prostitute and then a welfare recipient until she drank herself to death at age 47, her children are either dead or were given up for adoption and are no linger known to me. My Mother's Brother was a successful contractor in Houston and his kids have done well as builders, salesmen and homemakers. My Father has a PhD and was a Hospital Director, one of his brothers graduated college and was in Scouting until he came out as Gay and subsequently owned a retail business. Another of my Uncles was an USMC MP killed in the line of duty after two tours in Viet Nam and my Aunt is retired after a career in the Oil Business. Which brings me to my Brothers and me. I am the eldest, age 50, have a PhD in Computer Science and make enough to be a millionaire with the aid of frugality and luck. One brother aged 48, with two years of college, is a contractor and is clearing six figures a year. Another brother aged 45, with some college and 10 years as a sonar technician on a Sub, is also making six figures equipping shipping vessels with navigation systems. My twin half brothers (same Dad, different Moms) age 27, are both college grads living in New York. One has his Master's in Forensic Biology and works as a Crime Lab tech for the NYPD, the other is a NYU Film School Grad and is hustling his ass off in Show Biz. The older kids, without benefit of inherited wealth, all earn at least twice the US median household income.
So, while my family did not enjoy monetary inheritance, we did inherit an appreciation for hard work and education, whether that education was from a University or from a Master Carpenter or the US Navy did not matter, what mattered was that we paid attention and used our heads. We are not wealthy enough to forgo pursuing a well paying career, but we are by any measure well off. We were lucky to have been raised with the expectation that we would work hard and use our brains.
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