Paul Huntington of Longview, Washington, passed away due to a heart attack last week. As a District Manager for the Equitable Life Assurance Society, Paul was the man who hired me to sell insurance back in 1974. I’ve spoken about my years of teaching in these essays, but in Paul’s honor I’d like to tell about my ten years in the life insurance industry.
The story actually starts long before 1974. During the Great Depression, with one final $300 payment due on the family farm in South Dakota, my grandfather suffered a heart attack. He had an Equitable life insurance policy with enough cash value in it to make the payment. After cashing in the policy, he was never insurable again, although he lived well into his late seventies, but the farm remained in the family long after he was gone.
Needless to say, that whole story made a big impression on my father, and so, in 1956 when he had the opportunity to go to work for that same company, he did so and became, as the commercials said back then, Bisbee’s “Man from Equitable.” By the way, the Equitable’s hiring guidelines back then were as follows: Never hire a man whose wife works and never ever hire a woman.” That changed in the early seventies due to the fact that the CEO at the time, a man named Coy Eklund, had next door neighbors whose little girl grew up to be Gloria Steinem. Remember her?
When I married Jerry Janc in 1968, my father made sure I had a life insurance policy on him on which I was both the owner and the beneficiary. Once we decided to have kids, the health insurance offered by the school district didn’t include maternity coverage. Equitable’s major medical policy didn’t either, so we ended up tracking down a New York Life agent who sold us a policy that did.
When we left the reservation and moved to Pe Ell, Washington, in 1973, I went to the New York Life office in Chehalis to change the address on that policy. When the agent there asked about our life insurance situation, I told him that I thought we had that covered. His response? “People who believe in life insurance can sell life insurance. How would you like to go to work for me?” What? Go to work for the competition? Never, but he had planted a seed in my head. One of the things that kept me from doing anything about it was the fact that I was pregnant at the time.
We left the reservation in search of my husband’s dream—20 acres on a river. That’s how we ended up in an old farm house with five acres on the Chehalis River in Pe Ell. (By the way, our next door neighbor was the garbage dump.) We had gone from a two-income family to a one income family, and by the middle of 1974, after my son was born, I could see that we were about to be in big trouble financially. That’s when I started looking for a job. I applied to several local school districts, to no avail. And then I remembered what the guy from New York Life had said to me months earlier.
At the time, if you needed help with an Equitable policy, you were advised to call the nearest local office collect, and that office happened to be in Longview, Washington, an hour and ten minutes away. So I did just that, I called collect, spoke to Paul Huntington, and asked him for a job. He invited me in for an interview. I was still nursing my son at that point. I got dressed, fed him, and then raced out the door to drive to Longview. I returned three hours later, soaking wet.
During the interview, Paul asked me if I had any previous sales experience. “Well,” I told him, “I sold All Occasion Greeting Cards (The Junior Sales Club of America) and Girl Scout Cookies. Do those count?” Evidently the answer was yes, because weeks later he offered me a contract. On the same day, I heard from the Superintendent of Schools in Vader/Ryderwood School District. He, too, was willing to offer me a job, not as a librarian, by the way, but as an elementary teacher. “We have this particular group of third graders,” he said. In the years since, I’ve often remembered those words and wondered if any of those “particular” third graders grew up to be serial killers. But that comment was enough to push me over the edge. I called Paul back, told him I was in, and set about weaning my baby.
As Paul’s trainee, we went on appointments together. He was a car buff, and it was always a challenge to keep the interview focused on insurance. One of my clients in Vancouver had been awarded her husband’s Shelby Cobra as part of a divorce settlement. That interview was difficult to keep on track, but eventually Paul and I walked away with an application and a check. At some point, after Bill and I married, we visited Paul and his wife, Barbara, in Longview. While there, Paul was glad to discuss his car collection which included several Corvettes and … a Shelby Cobra. Did he buy it from that insurance client long after the fact? We’ll never know for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
As I said, during those several years in Washington the first time around, my marriage was already in deep trouble, and Paul and Barbara were like a safe haven for me. Several times they invited me to dinner at their gracious home on Kessler Boulevard. The way they were together—the way they treated each other—was like a beacon of light to me. They showed me how a marriage could be, and years later, when Bill asked me to marry him, the Huntingtons’ shining example was part of why I said yes.
I worked for Paul for the next two years before I left Pe Ell to return to Arizona. As I was getting ready to head south, Paul asked me how come I had called collect to ask him for a job. I told him, “If I’d had enough money for a long distance call, I wouldn’t have needed this job.”
I stayed in the life insurance business for the next ten years—long enough to earn a small pension. Each time I cash one of those checks, I know I have Paul Huntington to thank for it, because he was the one willing to take a chance on a woman who called him collect to ask for a job.
If any of my readers have ever wondered why Joanna Brady was working for an insurance company at the beginning of Desert Heat? Now you know.
That’s thanks to Paul Huntington, too.
Thank you for sharing this part of your story. You and your strength have given so many of your readers hope. We don’t always understand certain parts of our lives but there are always good things learned and lived even during the rough times. Insurance is a blessing some of us almost take for granted. In your families case it honestly saved the family farm and life style. It certainly influenced you when you had to make changes in your life.
Wonderful story
Wonderful story! It is so intriguing to see how an author’s personal life becomes part of there story. I think not choosing elementary school position was the wisest and perhaps safest choice.
I just read Desert Heat for the first time, this year, and yes, I DID wonder why Joanna Brady was working in an insurance company. Now I know. And, of all things, my insurance policy happens to be with Equitable Life.
I just love hearing your stories and it reminds me that life really does imitate art. Thanks for all that you do Judy to brighten our days.
P.S. Now I have to go back and read Desert Heat. Hmm, perhaps that was your
plan?
Health insurance has a bad (deserved!) rep but, to me, not so life insurance. My parents purchased their first home in the 1950s using the equity in Dad’s policy for the down payment. Over the years, they rebuilt that equity and kept it as an emergency fund since the interest rate was so low.
That particular policy ceased when Dad turned 65 so he took his cash payout and purchased a reputable annuity. Under the terms, he continued to receive payouts even after the fund was exhausted (he wasn’t expected to live that long!).
My husband purchased his first life insurance policy at age 18 and, as for my parents, the equity has helped us in hard times. With a trusted agent, we’ve worked out rebuilding equity while maintaining coverage. Needless to say, we bought policies for both children.
So, I never gave a 2nd thought to Joanna Brady selling insurance. That addition to her backstory went a long way for me to trust her as a moral, upstanding person. That factor, to me, was an obvious lead-in to running for Sheriff.
Thanks for including these snippets from your own life since they make your characters living, breathing, realistic entities.
Your comment about life insurance people being upstanding hit the mark. In my ten years in the insurance, not one of my male peers made a pass at me.
It took me a minute to realize that you meant ‘left the reservation’ to be literal and not figurative! My sister and her husband spent 5 years teaching on the Navajo reservation in Kayenta.
I saw this the other day and it made me say to myself, damn, that is J. A. Jance’s problem. Your books are always too short.
“If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”—Jane Austen
The same can definitely be said for Jane Austen novels. That and too few.
My husband and I have been fans of yours ever since you signed the inside of my first paperback in hmmmm, 1987 or 1988 at B. Dalton at Factoria Mall? I was a brand-new King County officer and really loved all the local references in your books…and you “got it”, you wrote as if you were out in the patrol car with me.
Not to be (too) sad, but reading your post today I needed to say, my husband passed away suddenly from a heart attack on 10/24. We live on a little farm just “up the road” from Pe Ell, in Onalaska. (Even your blog post is full of local references!) We are both retired from KCSO and were living the dream here.
Now it will be just me reading “you”. Bruce didn’t have time for reading fiction much but always read complete books once or twice a year, on camping trips when the grandkids were off fishing and it was quiet.
I am sorry for your loss. Grief is made easier through fond remembrance.
There’s a headstone in Ireland with a famous quote that’s so very true:
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal,
Love leaves a memory no one can steal.
Thank you so much Heidi. ?
I finished my third reading of the Ali Reynolds series and just starting the J.P. Beaumont series. Then I’ll go with Joanna Brady again. I can’t seem to get enough of my favorite author, and my three favorite characters.
Paul Huntington is my father. My husband shared this post with me just as I was writing his obituary. Fortuitous? I think not.
I have spent the past week in that house on Kessler surrounded the memories of my dad and my childhood. I remember you sitting at our table on more than one occasion. Dad never sent us away when entertaining people. If you came to our family table, you got the family. I was; however, often sent to bed before guests would leave and I would listen to the adult murmuring that drifted up to my room. I didn’t make out the words as much as the tones. They were calm and warm intertwined with bouts of laughter. Those were the sounds that lulled me to sleep. Thank you for being that to the forefront of my mind.
Dad was a great believer in people and I thank you for capturing that in your account of him. You graced us with a lovely tribute to my dad.
Heidi, thank you for that.
Love your stories- especially Joanna Brady, and, of course your own real life story. since I raised 2 boys myself with Grandma’s help, I can readily identify with your books.
Paul Huntington was my grandfather. Thank you so much for sharing this so people got to read about the wonderful person he was. This was very touching for me to read. Thank you again.
Once again I really enjoyed this blog. I especially liked to “hear” you talking about Pe Ell, as I’m now reading J.P. Beaumont A MORE PERFECT UNION (for the second time….) and part of the story takes place in Pe Ell. It’s kind of amazing to me when you talk of all the different locations in Seattle and detailed directions when you are heading to a destination while investigating a case. I’ve read all the SPENCER P.I. books and last night I was thinking about how much J.P reminds me of SPENCER. Some authors have taken over writing the Spencer series, but they just aren’t as good as the original author, Robert B. Parker. I was so sad when he passed as I knew there wouldn’t be anymore Spencer books. I know, kind of selfish of me, but I truly felt like Spenser was a close friend throughout his 30 plus books.