LIVING HISTORY
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Debra Sloan helped oversee her mother Jo Ann’s affairs the last two decades
of her life, which were spent in North Carolina.
THE LAST HOPE
Jo Ann and TL’s last hope to turn around their fortune lies
with Tellico Trout Farm. But the cost to run the farm and
maintain the 1800s farmhouse, known as the “big house,”
in which Jo Ann is living, far exceed any income coming in.
For about a decade, Jo Ann had been raising Kathy’s four
daughters at the big house with Kathy living nearby. Debra
also helps raise the girls.
Faced with mounting debt, including a $28,000 feed bill
when she began managing the farm, Debra says she sold
whatever she could to keep the farm going and maintain the
house. She first sold a canary diamond ring that TL had given
Jo Ann earlier in their marriage, a transaction that yielded
$60,000. Then she resorted to selling silver goblets, oriental
rugs and some of the furniture of Granddad Frank and
Mother Lou that had been shipped to North Carolina.
When that money was depleted, Debra says she at first
leased out the trout farm — with Jo Ann staying in the
farmhouse — to two separate companies. When that didn’t
solve the money issues, Jo Ann filed personal bankruptcy
and bankruptcy for Macon County Investments, the family
corporation that owned the farm.
“There wasn’t any way to keep the farm going, because it
wasn’t generating any income,’’ Debra says. “It cost $50,000
a year to support the big house. Mother filed bankruptcy
because it was the only way to protect her and the farm for as
long as possible.”
Debra says TL and Jo Ann still had the $675,000 IRS tax
debt from the Cow Creek Ranch sale looming as well as
outstanding loans from Riverside Bank in Fort Pierce and a
$100,000 private loan against the farm. No longer able to get a
conventional bank loan, TL had taken the latest loan out from
a private individual.
“He never filed any bankruptcy because Mother owned
the lion’s share,’’ Debra says. “I think it was a matter of pride
for him.’’
The financial arrangements between TL and Jo Ann were
unusual. Deed records from the sale of Cow Creek showed Jo
Ann with a 77 percent interest in most of the sections of the
ranch and TL with a 22 percent interest. Debra believes the
split in ownership of Macon County Investments was similar.
Even though Jo Ann was the overwhelming majority partner,
she always allowed TL to make the business decisions.
“It was her money and she allowed him to use it, which was
my issue,’’ Debra says. >>
ROBERTSON FAMILY ARCHIVES
TL and Diane, left, with ever-present German shepherd and visits by family at the house in St. Lucie Village that became their home in 1991.