Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
͙͘͡★
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
𝓘t wasn't the kind of lottery people ever talked about anymore—not in casual conversation or whispered scandals shared over drinks. The Ashburns didn't always have money, not the kind that gets written about in Forbes or carved into marble at university libraries. Once upon a time, they were the sort of genteel poor that southern families specialize in—old name, old house, but too many stories about silver being sold off and too few about anything being built. Then, in 1939, Arlo Ashburn bought a lottery ticket on a whim.
One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. More money than the family had seen in two lifetimes. More money than anyone thought they'd see again.
The thing about money, though, is it doesn't always work like you think it will. Arlo spent his winnings recklessly—Cadillacs, champagne, mermaid ice sculptures—but his wild spending wasn't just the talk of Charleston dinner parties. It was a blueprint, proof to his brothers and nephews that money, real money, wasn't about saving or scrimping. It was about using. Investing. Turning one dollar into ten.
By the 1950s, the Ashburns weren't just rich—they were untouchable. The family's investments in shipping, textiles, and later real estate bloomed into an empire that stretched from the Lowcountry to Manhattan's Upper East Side. By the time Salome was born, they were the kind of family people whispered about. They had the kind of wealth that smelled faintly of scandal, the kind where no one was entirely sure what they did, only that they had more of it than anyone else.
Her father had inherited the legacy but not the interest. John Ashburn was charming but restless, a man who wore wealth like an old coat he couldn't quite shake off. He spent more time on the deck of his forty-five-foot Hinckley than in boardrooms, letting his trust fund and the Ashburn attorneys do the heavy lifting. He married Kate not because she was beautiful—though she was—but because she was sharp, the kind of woman who could turn an offhand comment into a dagger and wield it with a smile. Kate handled the family business while John disappeared into long fishing trips and longer nights at the Figure Eight Club, nursing scotch and chasing the ghosts of his father's disapproval.
