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Nashvillian comes to weeping refugee's aid with $200
Good Samaritan steps in when banks reject check
Tennessean.com
By LEON ALLIGOOD
September 2, 2005
Vicki Johnson of Slidell, La., has lost her home and maybe her job to Katrina's wrath.
Yesterday, the Louisiana hurricane refugee lost her composure.
Despite all her troubles, Johnson said she had not really had a good cry until yesterday when two local banks refused to cash a cashier's check for $200, all the cash she has. The check was a gift from her sister in Wisconsin, drawn on a Wisconsin bank.
"I was strong for so long, but I couldn't take it. When the second bank told me it was against their policy to cash the check, I broke down crying. I walked out of the bank with tears coming down my face. I didn't know what we were going to do because to me that money, it's everything. It's a way we can get to Indiana, where I have family,'' Johnson said. She is traveling with her son, Eric Mihalik, her fiancé, Paul Waters, and a menagerie of five cats and two dogs. They have been staying at the LaQuinta Inn off the Harding Place exit on I-65.
Outside the bank Johnson heard what she described as "the voice of an angel." The voice said: "I hope this will help." Johnson said she looked up to see the face of Fern Galloway, a Nashville retiree who was behind her in line. In her outstretched hand was a $100 bill.
"I didn't know this woman at all, and here she was giving me $100."
A few minutes later the Good Samaritan gave her another $100 in $20 bills. "I told her, 'I don't even know you,' " Johnson said.
"She said she was going to give it to the Red Cross anyway, but instead she was giving it to us."
Representatives of the banks involved, First Tennessee and Bank of America, said their employees were just following bank policies. "Our policy is that we do not cash checks for non-customers when the check is not drawn on Bank of America. I really can't speak beyond what the current policy is. I don't know if there's any activity going on to consider anything different or not,'' said Mark McQueen, market development manager for Bank of America in Nashville.
Mike Edwards, president of the Nashville Region of First Tennessee Bank, said he and other bank leaders were going to discuss the issue today.
"The employee was doing their job. We need to make sure we do our job to try to work with people who need some special arrangements," Edwards said. The new policy will take into consideration the "extenuating circumstances" and will take steps to verify that the check is good, and if so, to cash it for the individual.
"We've got employees that have been affected. We've got family and friends down there, so we're very concerned about it, and we'll try to do what we can to work with everybody who comes in, but there are going to be some times where it's going to be more difficult to verify than others," Edwards said.
Johnson, who, ironically, started working for a New Orleans bank two weeks ago, said she never thought there would be a problem in cashing a cashier's check.
"I didn't think there would be much of a problem, but apparently it is. I'm sure there are going to be many others like me who need to know this kind of information,'' she said. "But at least Nashville ought to know that they have a citizen who was so thoughtful and so kind to give money out of her own pocket,'' said Johnson, who hopes to repay Galloway. Johnson said her first paycheck is locked up in her desk at the bank, which may or may not have been destroyed by the hurricane.
"She saved us," Johnson said, referring to Galloway.
In the end, the $200 cashier's check was cashed by Kroger for a $3 service fee.
Galloway, who said she never intended that her good deed become public, said she was only doing what she thought was right.
"I just felt so sorry for her,'' the Good Samaritan said.
