It was September 1986, and Annabel Hill, 66, was facing an auction where she would lose the farm that had been in her family for five generations.

Hill’s husband, Lenard, had committed suicide eight months earlier, 20 minutes before a scheduled auction, in a last-ditch attempt to save his property with life insurance money. The life insurance money wasn’t enough, covering only $175,000 of debts than ran in excess of $300,000, from two years of a drought that Hill said had ruined their livelihood. Even when several hundred acres of the 1,300-acre Waynesboro, Georgia, farm were sold, the now-widowed Annabel still found herself deep in debt and facing an auction.

That’s when real estate tycoon Donald Trump and a series of other personalities stepped in to help save Hill’s farm.

The push to save Hill’s farm began with Frank Argenbright, a well-regarded Atlanta businessman. Argenbright had helped another farmer keep his land, according to reports. Argenbright asked Hill to appear at a news conference with him in the city. That news conference made its way onto NBC’s Nightly News and was watched by Trump.

“I saw a story on the news about Annabel Hill, who’d hit bottom,” The Donald writes in his book The America We Deserve.

“It was a very sad situation, and I was moved,” Trump writes in The Art of the Deal. “Here were people who’d worked very hard and honestly all their lives, only to see it all crumble before them. To me, it just seemed wrong.”

Trump reached out to Argenbright, who was able to put Trump in touch with bank that held Hill’s mortgage.

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