Bill Poston bought his first shares of what is now Wachovia more than 40 years ago, when he worked as a management trainee at a bank in Virginia. Over time, he accumulated a lot of stock, which he hoped to retire on.

But the bank's rapid fall has rendered his holdings near-worthless -- and now, he wants answers.

"If a man is telling you one week a bank is solvent, and less than a week later the FDIC is expediting a sale of the bank's assets, there's something wrong here," said Poston, 69. "Somebody is misleading the shareholders."

In several days that have seen shares of Wachovia fall from $10 to around $1 before recovering to close at $3.55 on Wednesday, investors are questioning the company's leadership. They're questioning the government. They're questioning a deal in which Citigroup would buy the bulk of the bank's operations for $2.2 billion in stock, leaving shareholders with a stake in only the much smaller Wachovia that would remain.

Large institutional investors control 73 percent of Wachovia's stock, and they stand to lose the most in absolute dollars if it falters.

For many individual investors -- whether because they worked for the company, or just believed in it -- it means far more. Those investors -- in towns along the eastern seaboard where Wachovia and its predecessors snapped up banks for decades -- they're looking at generations of stock ownership with sadness and regret.

Poston, of Richmond, Va., retired as executive vice president of a bank Wachovia later bought. He invested for the long term, and in return, the stock paid him a reliable dividend.

In hindsight, he said, many things bothered him about the bank's health in recent years, but former CEO Ken Thompson's assurances lulled him into a false sense of security.

"I own Wachovia stock, my three children own Wachovia stock, my five grandchildren own Wachovia stock, and they've all lost everything," said Poston. He declined to specify how many shares he owned but said he has taken significant hits to his net worth and income.

"They have lied. That's the only way I can say it."

Tom Rice's Wachovia shares have been in his family since the 1930s, when his grandfather bought 15 shares in the Bank of Yanceyville. Upon his death, he willed three shares to each of his five children; when Rice's mother died, she passed her shares on to Tom, of Valdese, and his sister.

They consider the shares an heirloom and still plan to pass them on to their own children. But what they're bequeathing remains to be seen: Two years ago, Rice said, their 5,500 shares were worth $330,000; Tuesday, they were worth about $19,250.

"The desecration of Wachovia, for me, has also been the desecration of the legacy of my dead ancestors," he said. "I felt I could trust the leadership in Charlotte to do the right thing and examine acquisitions like Golden West and ask the right questions and demand the right answers."

Richard Delello, 64, a retired Wachovia employee from Philadelphia, said he believed the company could have bounced back under Bob Steel but ran out of time.

Now, he said, he's holding onto his 3,200 shares. He feels like he's lost so much already, he doesn't have much else to lose by keeping them. He plans to vote against the Citi deal, saying he believes shareholders can get a better deal, despite the potential losses Wachovia faces because of bad loans.

"How this all came to an end is a very, very sad state of affairs," he said.

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