The "Excited Bank Teller" Story

Forword:  The year was 1810 and our nation was on the brink of a second war with England.  Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my lifetime home was at the time the largest inland town in our young nation with 5,000 residents.  The town was a thriving agricultural community, but was beginning to grow commercially as well as gaining a manufacturing economy.  One thing that was missing in Lancaster was a bank.  

41 North Queen Street

So, on January 17, leading citizens formed Farmers Bank of Lancaster which was housed in a rented house at 41 North Queen Street in downtown Lancaster.  Three years later the British were setting fire to our new Capitol in Washington, D.C. and Lancaster's new bank was moving into its new home at the corner of Duke and King Streets.  It served the community well for the next 150 years until in 1963 the Farmers Bank and Lancaster County National Bank merged into Lancaster County Farmers National Bank.  Over the next seven years more banks from neighboring cities were consolidated into what was then known in 1970 as National Central Bank.  CoreStates Hamilton Bank was the successor to that consolidation and was formed in 1980.  Then in 1998 First Union Bank acquired CoreStates Hamilton.  That in turn became Wachovia Bank in 2001 and seven years later became Wells Fargo.  

It was an ordinary day.  The year was 1950 and Mom and Dad were sitting with me at their bank in downtown Lancaster.  They had just opened a bank account for me so I could begin to save money for .... I'm not sure what!  But, they thought I should have a bank account to save whatever I could afford to put into the bank account. Maybe because they never had a bank account when they were young and they wanted something better for me.  I can still remember that little black ledger booklet that during every trip to the bank the teller would stamp with a rubber stamp and write in the amount that I brought to the bank to deposit.  I really don't ever remember withdrawing any money, but do remember making deposits into the account.  I have gone through quite a few changes of bank names and logos, but it is still the same bank to me.  The account now bears the name of both my wife and I, but it is still the same account I started in 1950.  Our debit cards today may say Wells Fargo on them and feature a stage coach pulled by six horses, but we are still making deposits and withdrawing money from that same account I started in 1950 when I was skinny, crew-cut six-year-old.   A few months ago I went to the MAC machine to withdraw some money and when I placed my card into the slot, a note appeared on the monitor of the machine.  It read: Congratulations for being a member of Wells Fargo for 66 years!  We value your business.  Wow, pretty neat!  Told my wife when I got home about the neat experience I had at the bank Drive-Thru.  But, that wasn't the end of it.  Today, I pulled into the Drive-Thru to deposit a check and after placing it in the plastic tube and sending it into the bank, the young male teller turned on my speaker and said, "Mr. Woods, thank you so much for being a customer with this bank for 66 years.  That's remarkable!  I wasn't even born when you opened up that account with the bank.  I see here you were six-years-old.  Pretty neat!!"  "Well, thank you!" I answered.  "And, is there anything else I can do for you today?" he questioned me.  "No, I think you did enough.  Thank you." I once again said.  His excitement was very noticeable.  I'm sure he doesn't get an extreme amount of septuagenarians making deposits at his window.  And, to have been a member of his bank for 66 years.  That had to be a shock to him.  To me ..... well, it's just neat to be able to drive a car through the Drive-Thru without running into the deposit unit. Now, I have to remember on every trip to the bank to remember to place that little tube back in the machine before I leave.  I'm getting too many of them at home!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.