The Washerwoman Who Gave Away a Fortune

In 1995, Oseola McCarty of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, walked into the University of Southern Mississippi and donated one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for scholarships. She was eighty-seven years old. She had earned every cent washing and ironing other people's clothes since the sixth grade.

Miss McCarty lived in a small frame house with no air conditioning. She had never owned a car. She washed laundry by hand in a large pot until arthritis finally stopped her fingers in her late eighties. Every week, she set a portion aside — not much, but always something — depositing it faithfully at Trustmark National Bank for over seventy years.

When reporters asked if she worried about giving so much away, she looked puzzled. "I know it won't come back," she said. "I just want the children to have what I didn't." She kept just enough to live on and gave the rest without a tremor of regret.

The psalmist wrote that the righteous person "has scattered abroad gifts to the poor" and that "their righteousness endures forever." Miss McCarty never read investment journals or consulted financial advisors. Her heart was steady, trusting in the Lord. She did not fear bad news because she had already decided what her money was for. It was never really hers. She was simply the faithful hand through which the Almighty chose to bless a generation she would never meet.