Book recounts Palisade man's obsession with riches

Alison Krotter Johnson, a native of Palisade, writes a book called "The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever," about her father's hidden stashes of two tons of gold and silver coins. The cover of the book features photographs of her parents, Audrey and Dean Krotter. Johnson indicates in the front of the book that she wrote the family memoir in 1984-85, but delayed publishing it (2008) while her brothers were still alive.

Author Alison Krotter Johnson of Topsham, Maine, sent postcards to Palisade residents this summer, letting them know that copies of her book will be available at a booth in space 45 in Norris Park during McCook's Heritage Days Saturday and Sunday.

Johnson herself, a native of Palisade, won't be there as she had originally planned, being extremely cautious of the shaky state of America's economy. She said this morning in a phone call that she's been told, "Maybe your father was right ... "

Johnson's book, "The Eleventh Hour Can't Last Forever," tells the story of the destructive obsession of her father, Dean Krotter, with buying and hoarding gold and silver coins and her family's problems as they dealt with living in a small Nebraska town that she describes as "about as far as one could get from civilization in the United States."

Johnson doesn't paint a complimentary picture of her family members -- her father's withdrawal from all but his financial books and magazines and his hidden caches of coins, her mother's decline into mental collapse, her older brother's alcoholism, her younger brother's escape to Canada to avoid Vietnam, her sister's insecurities, moods and anger.

Johnson's portrayal of Palisade and its countryside isn't any brighter -- "The countryside yielded only a few scattered cottonwood trees clinging to the banks of the river or the tiny creeks trickling into it. The only large plants to survive on the open prairie were sunflowers and tall weeds ... "

She describes Palisade's Main Street: "Fortunately, only an occasional car drove up Main Street."

..."It was an all too abrupt transition to leave the charm and beauty of Paris ... and return to Palisade, Nebraska, with its dusty little Main Street where every other shabby building stood empty. There we found ourselves, however ... "

Palisade's residents she feared would break into her family's many properties to steal the gold and silver coins that Dean Krotter was rumored to have hidden for years. " ... or worse yet, try to force any of us who happened to be there to tell them where they (the coins) were hidden. We could be in some danger spending the month of August there if someone guessed we were hunting for a fortune in gold and silver."

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Alison and her sister, Diane, fought for years over the gold and silver, how to protect it, transport it, how to count it, how to sell it/invest it ... how to care for the physical and mental problems plaguing their father and mother, how to cope with Kent's worsening alcoholism and Mark's withdrawal from the family ... how to handle the family's vacation property in Colorado ... how to manage conservatorship of Dean and Audrey Krotter's estates. Unscrupulous coin dealers, vultures in the guise of friends, doctors and psychiatrists, and, of course, attorneys become involved.

Although Alison seems to have escaped the debilitating mental problems that haunted her core family, the ordeal of taking care of them wreaks havoc on her own marriage and her relationship with her daughters and grandchildren. The gold and silver coins that Johnson feels are the root cause of all her family's problems cost her more than any amount of money can ever make right.

Nebraska billionaire Warren E. Buffett even acknowledged the evil of the coins when he wrote to Johnson in 2006: "In a sad way, I enjoyed reading the account of your life and that of your father. It's a saga relating how an obsession with money can really mess up a family."

Buffett wrote, "I ... remember the look in his (your father's) eyes when he started talking about gold (and didn't stop!). I've seen it in other people and it's not a healthy signal."

Wayne Carver of Carleton College wrote: "It is an astonishing story. ... a very sad story ... tragic-comic, I guess."

Johnson said this morning from her home that the book is selling well. "It's selling like hot-cakes," she said, and many readers are ordering additional copies.

Johnson admitted it is a disturbing book. "Oh, it is. It is," she said. "Although some people are telling me that maybe my father was right -- with the country close to bankruptcy ... the price of gold. The book is particularly current."

Contact Alison Krotter Johnson at her Web site.