In Her Words: Georgette Appiano, Achieving Her Dreams of Financial Freedom, Safety, and Harmony for Her Family
Business woman, mother, grandmother, domestic violence survivor, and modern day Cinderella, makes her own magic and follows her heart
I graduated from high school in 1982 and I wasn’t going to college. My mom told me to go into the city and get a job. I went to an employment agency, and they gave me a job for $200 a week in a brokerage house. I went home and told my mother I got a job and she says “Go back to the agency. I want you to work for attorneys.” So I do, but I don’t like it. I was bored and I didn't like the woman I was working for. She was a little bit older than me, but she wasn't my speed. I complain to my mother and she says “You have to go back there and you have to learn what that girl knows.” I asked her why and she said “Because you have to work for the partners of a law firm and while you're at it, you should try to also marry one of them.”
But I didn’t marry a partner from a law firm. I married my high school boyfriend in 1985 and my mother got pancreatic cancer. I was crying all the time at work, so they asked if I wanted to go on unemployment and I said yes. In 1987, my first daughter was born, and I had three more daughters. In 1988, my mother passed away, and then my father died not long after that and I had no siblings. I didn’t really work much after I started having babies but when my father died, I inherited money and was able to buy a house in New Jersey in cash.
I was sitting in my minivan, waiting for my daughter to come out of a friend’s house and I took out a little piece of paper and wrote down everything I knew.
My husband went through all the money. He was an alcoholic, a drug addict, a criminal, and an abuser and he couldn’t keep the utilities on or pay the taxes because he couldn’t work consistently. He got progressively worse as the years went on. When my girls were in middle school and high school, I lost my house and we got evicted. I didn’t even know I was getting evicted until the day I did. From there, we went into rentals, but he never really paid the rent. Sometimes it was hard to get food and the utilities wouldn’t be on. We were always practically squatting.
We got evicted five times. I sought out therapy throughout my marriage. It’s hard to get social services when you have no job and no money, but I got what I could through my township and the state and I went to Al-Anon, which was very helpful. One late night, I was on a call with a 24-hour hotline for abused women and the woman said to me “Well, what could you do?” I said, “Oh, I can't do anything. I'm just a mom. I didn't go to college. I only went to high school. There's nothing I could do.” So she said “Well, what did you do before you had kids? Before you got married?” I said “Oh, I worked in Manhattan. I worked for two partners who were the real estate attorneys for the Dime Savings Bank,” and I started explaining everything I did. I prepared all the closing documents and did all the math. I typed really well. “Well, that sounds like something,” she said. I realized she was right, and I started thinking. I did know a lot of things, especially about how to get a mortgage and close on a house.
A short time later, I was sitting in my minivan, waiting for my daughter to come out of a friend’s house and I took out a little piece of paper and wrote down everything I knew. I wrote my business plan down for real estate. It began with residential appraisals.
“My first profit from my new business was $75 and I thought “Wow, it does work!”
From there I went home, and I started my appraisal business, which I still own and operate today. I started calling up banks and soliciting them for work. I remember being on a sales call with a girl in California, named Soda. I’ll never forget it. She asked why she should use me and I said, “If you give me the order, I will perform for you, like nobody that you're using will be able to perform, I promise you. She gave me the order and I worked like a maniac on it.
I had to hire people to work for me, because I didn’t have an appraiser’s license and most of the people who I had to hire were men. Meanwhile, I was very fragile and delicate because I was being abused. I had to be very strong and not sound like I was terrified. I remember one appraiser telling me he didn’t want to work for me and asking me why he should. I told him, “Well you should work for me because I have the business. I have the account.” That still wasn’t enough for him, so I said “Listen, when you get on a bus to go into Manhattan, do you think the bus driver owns the company? I don't have a license to do appraisals, just like the owner of the bus company doesn't have a CDL license to drive a bus,” and he took the job.
The clients gave me more and more work and I added more clients. In the beginning, I had little side jobs, just to have food on the table. I was working the side jobs in the morning and then coming home to work on my business. My first profit from my new business was $75 and I thought “Wow, it does work!” Two months later, my profits increased, and I was so busy that I had to quit all these little side jobs. I don’t think anybody worked as many hours as I worked because failure was not an option. I was available seven days a week. I was working till midnight or one o’clock in the morning. If the clients needed something, they were getting it before they ever expected to get it.
I stayed married for a really long time because I thought he would change. It was psychological abuse. But when I started doing this business and I started making money and people would be calling on the phone and asking for me, he started getting angry and he became physically abusive. He would run after me and pull my hair out of my head. He would lock me in the basement. He’d do things to my car so I couldn’t leave. He’d lock me out of my house. I’d have to sleep in the yard. I’d have to try to work in the car and just stay away from him. I had to start calling the cops.
When you go to family court, it can take an entire day before you see a judge. You get there at 9:00 in the morning. You have to write down a million things. You have to get interviewed by a million people.
My mom’s best friend died in April of 2012. She became my second mom after my mother’s passing. I had a vivid dream of her shortly after she died. In my dream she told me it was ok. I could go! I could leave my husband. The day after my aunt’s funeral, he left the house and was waiting for a ride in the driveway. I opened the door and I said, “Don’t come back today. I’m getting divorced. Just don’t come back.” He turned around, and he said “I’ll come back. And I’ll do whatever I want. And you’ll like it.” I said, “No, not today,” and I closed the door.
At this point, my kids were in high school and college and were working. One of my daughters was home and I asked her to go to family court with me. I wanted a restraining order and I wanted to start my divorce. When you go to family court, it can take an entire day before you see a judge. You get there at 9:00 in the morning. You have to write down a million things. You have to get interviewed by a million people. At the end of the day I finally sit down in front of a woman judge in the basement of the family court and she tells me she thinks I’m using the court to play games with my husband. I had too many restraining orders that I dropped. After what I did to him that morning, I’m thinking he’s gonna kill me now when I get home.
My quiet daughter, who was sitting in the back of the court, raises her hand and says “Excuse me, Your Honor. On the way to court my father called my mother and I recorded it while he was talking to her on Bluetooth. Do you want to hear it?” The judge listens to the entire recording, tells me that he has violated every human right I have in one phone call, and she grants me a restraining order for myself and my kids. From there, we go to Home Depot and get some new locks and I called one of my daughter’s friends to help me install them. I was so afraid. But everything about that day was so magical. It felt like it was a “yes” day for me.
But I got to the point where I realized I couldn’t live like this. It wasn’t right for my daughters.
I went to a lawyer who I was working with in my businesses, handed him $2,000 and I told him I wanted to be divorced by August and he said OK. This was May. My husband would come to the house, and I’d call the cops and I wouldn’t let him in. They would put him right in jail. He came back a couple times and every time I called the cops and I got him arrested. Every time he wrote to me, I saved it. But I wouldn’t read it because I didn’t want him to psychologically control me anymore. I wouldn’t read the text messages. I wouldn’t answer the phone. But I saved it all for court. I was divorced by September, and it cost me a little more because every time I needed my ex to sign something he wouldn’t do it unless I gave him money for drugs or whatever he would use it for.
Once we were divorced, I never saw him. He tried, but I kept calling the cops. It was a miracle because I was so scared of him. I would take the abuse because I thought it would be worse if I defied him. But I got to the point where I realized I couldn’t live like this. It wasn’t right for my daughters. I thought this has got to be some kind of a mistake and I gotta fix it. When I started fixing it, there was no obstacle that could stop me. I had to succeed. There was no other option.
Living with the abuser was so hard and it felt almost impossible to be rid of him and have a free life. Once my mind realized I could be free and this is not ok everything became easy to do. The divorce was easy.
Two of my daughters work with me. I hope they take over the businesses at some point.
I’m still working and I want to keep working. In addition to the appraisal business, I have a second business called The Closing Machine. I’m excellent at foreclosures and short sales because I’ve been there myself. Two of my daughters work with me. I started my businesses because I had to support myself and my children. There was no other option for me. I got remarried earlier this year and my new husband is a wonderful, kind, smart man. I’ve known him since we were children. I sometimes can’t believe I have a husband as kind and considerate as John. It is just a world of difference from my first marriage.
If you were going to give advice to your 25 year old self, what would you say?
You know, everything's gonna be okay. You can get through anything. I wouldn't want a different life because I think I was supposed to have my four kids. If I would've married a lawyer like my mother wanted me to, I would have lived in the suburbs with a nice cushy life, and I would have never known what I could do. I feel really proud of myself. It all happens the way it's supposed to happen. That’s what I think. I would still live through all that hardship because of where I am today. Adversity builds character.
Belle Curve Stories is about women navigating life with grit, grace, and growth. What do those three words mean to you?
Grit is doing whatever you have to do to get to where you want to be. Grace is doing it and not being embarrassed or afraid. No yelling, no screaming, no excitement. Just do it. That's the grace part. The growth is where you are when you're done. I have definitely grown as a woman. It was such a control thing with my ex-husband. I used to have to say “Don't yell at me. Don't hit me. Don't talk to me like that.” Now I carry myself in such a way that you would know that you can't treat me that way, which I love. I'm respected because I'm a respectable person.
As told to and edited by Teresa Bellock and Sandra Ditore
Georgette Appiano, 60, is the founder of MCP Appraisals and The Closing Machine. Her experience as a domestic violence survivor served as a catalyst to start her businesses, which are now part of a family legacy that she shares with her new husband, four daughters, and grandchildren.
The Closing Machine LLC on instagram.
SPECIAL NOTE: Please reach out for help if you are a victim of Domestic Violence. Call 1-800-799-7233 or visit the website for The National Domestic Violence Hotline.
This is a great story about a really strong woman who had no idea how strong she was until she was tested by an untenable situation. She responded with incredible grit and grace and experienced tremendous growth when she was forced to make a dramatic changes in her life. With the help of a crisis counselor she learned to value herself and the strength that laid dormant within her. She survived.
Her story is an inspiration to anyone who is forced into making a dramatic change in their lives and she is a wonderful example to her daughters and everyone else who is reading her story.
Thank you for including the phone number of the National Domestic Ciolence hotline at the end of this inspiring article. It really does show how one phone call or one interaction can change the trajectory of a victim’s life. And thank God that her daughter recorded the interaction that convinced a judge to implement a restraining order. Wow. This is an incredible story…