Early in Warren Buffett's life, his father failed to get hired at the family grocery store during the Great Depression. Without a job, and without any money after a run on the banks, the family of four ran up a tab of grocery bills at the store to put food on the table, and even then, his mother sometimes skipped meals.

Leila Buffett, beset by stress and with a mind likely affected by linotype fumes she inhaled as a child, often berated her two small children.